Clytemnestra hesitates before killing the sleeping Agamemnon

Guérin exhibited this famous canvas at the Salon of 1817, depicting the supreme moment of psychological tension in Aeschylus's Oresteia: Clytemnestra stands over the sleeping Agamemnon, holding the sword, and hesitates. The subject was among the most psychologically demanding in the entire classical canon — requiring the artist to represent not action but the arrested moment before action, when conscience or fear holds a committed murderer in suspension. Guérin's canvas was celebrated by critics and artists for precisely this feat of psychological restraint, which distinguished it from the more straightforward scenes of completed violence common in Neoclassical history painting. Eugène Delacroix cited the painting as an important influence on his own developing interest in psychological rather than merely physical drama. The Louvre work thus occupies a pivotal position in the transition from Neoclassical theatrical composition to Romantic psychological intensity.

The composition isolates Clytemnestra above the sleeping Agamemnon in a stark diagonal, her raised weapon creating tension between potential action and the visible hesitation in her face and body. The sleeping king's vulnerability is emphasized by the open, defenseless quality of his pose — unconsciousness depicted as complete physical abandonment.