This is one of my favourite paintings by Alexandre-Georges-Henri Regnault entitled “Automedon with the Horses of Achilles”.
The horses, although foaming at the mouth, are not wild, they are grieving. Both immortal, the horses Xanthos and Balious were given to Achilles’ parents as a gift from Poseidon and pulled the young hero’s chariot during the Trojan war. When Achilles was mortally wounded, the horses were inconsolable, and it is Automedon, Achillies’ charioteer, who tries to console them.













