Benno Elkan
(Dortmund 1877–1960 London)
Deianeira on the back of the centaur Nessus / Goethe after Pierre Jean David D’Angers
after 1924, bronze casting

The motif of Deianeira on the back of the centaur Nessus comes from Sophocles' Trachíniai (around 435 BC). In this Greek tragedy, Deianeira, her husband Heracles, and Nessus try in vain to escape the disaster foretold by the oracle. This sense of inevitability is also addressed in Goethe's Faust II, Act 5, Deep Night – „when somthing happens it’s a sign or warning“. Suffering is predetermined by the forces of fate and will inevitably come to pass.