1934

Oath of the Women of Athens and Sparta

Spanish, 1881 - 1973

Picasso deliberately sought out projects that allowed him to portray scenes from classical mythology. In 1934 he illustrated a limited-edition volume of Lysistrata, an ancient Greek comedy written by Aristophanes in 411 BCE, about protests staged by soldiers’ wives during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE). This etching depicts the moment when Lysistrata, the play’s protagonist, persuades the wives of soldiers in the rival cities of Athens and Sparta to take an oath to withhold sex from their husbands until they agreed to end the war.