Ayax mudado en flor · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture · Center for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: Ayax mudado en flor
Period: 1550-1600;
Geographic: Anatolia; Troy; Ancient Greece; Asia Minor
Description: This engraving illustrates Ajax killing himself after finding out that he lost a debate to Ulysses. The prize of the debate was the armor and weapons of the great Achilles. Ajax, despite being Achilles cousin, lost the debate and therefore lost the right to take the armor. After hearing that Ulysses won, Ajax took his sword and stabbed himself with it. The blood that is illustrated pouring out of Ajax sprouts a flower as it hits the ground. The blood transforms into a hyacinth flower, as depicted in the engraving.
Image Creator: Virgil Solis (Engraver)
Type: Text; Woodcut Engraving
Identifier: mta:11857
Language: spa
Source Name: Las Transformaciones de Ovidio en lengua Española, repartidas en quinze libros, con las Allegorias al fin dellos, y sus figuras, para prouecho de los Artifices [The Transformations of Ovid in the Spanish language, distributed in fifteen books, with the allegories at the end of them and their figures, for the benefit of the creators]
Parent Collection: Las Transformaciones de Ovidio en lengua Española. Woodcut engravings by Virgil Solis (1595)
Image: mta_11857_OBJ.jpg
Collection: Ovid's Metamorphoses
Subject: The Trojan War; Contest; Transformation; Roman Mythology; Greek Mythology; Ajax; Achilles