Orpheus and Eurydice

'Orpheus and Eurydice' of 1869, held at the Belvedere in Vienna, represents Feuerbach's treatment of the most poignant myth of irreversible loss in the ancient world. The story of Orpheus leading his dead wife Eurydice back from the underworld — only to lose her again by turning to look at her — provided Feuerbach with a mythological equivalent to his recurrent themes of longing and the impossibility of union. Painted during the intensely productive Roman period of the late 1860s, the work reflects his sustained engagement with ancient sources and Renaissance interpretations, particularly Gluck's opera 'Orfeo ed Euridice' (1762), which had made the subject newly current. The Belvedere acquisition connected the work to Vienna's institutional collection just a few years before Feuerbach himself accepted a professorship there. The composition freezes the fatal moment of hesitation before the look, investing the figures with a classical stillness that distinguishes Feuerbach's approach from the more theatrical Romantic treatments of the same subject.

Feuerbach structures the composition around the spatial and emotional tension between the two figures — Orpheus moving forward, Eurydice in the act of dissolution behind him. The underworld setting allows for a deeply shadowed background against which the pale skin of Eurydice reads as spectral and transient. Classical drapery and figure modelling reflect the influence of ancient relief sculpture.