Battling Amazons

The ferocious scenes of battle depicted in these works, two preparatory drawings and a related painting, show the inspiration Curry drew from the study of Old Master art during his Paris visit, which ended with a trip through London. These works draw upon the tradition of battle and hunting scenes for which artists such as Peter Paul Rubens and Eugène Delacroix gained reputations. The swirling and chaotic composition, the conjoined mass of bodies, and the rearing horses have precedents in Rubens’ Battle of the Standard (after a lost Leonardo da Vinci) and Delacroix’s Lion Hunt.