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The Brooklyn Museum

Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art
The Dinner Party: Heritage Floor: Cassandra




signature image

Judy Chicago (American, b. 1939). The Dinner Party (Heritage Floor; detail), 1974–79. Porcelain with rainbow and gold luster, 48 x 48 x 48 ft. (14.6 x 14.6 x 14.6 m). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation, 2002.10. © Judy Chicago. Photograph by Jook Leung Photography

Cassandra
Mythic, worshipped in ancient Greece, dates vary, beginning circa 1600 B.C.

The ravishing Cassandra, literally "she who entangles men," was the daughter of Priam and Hecuba, king and queen of Troy. The god Apollo, enamored of her, granted her the power of prophecy but, when she rejected him, sabotaged that power with a curse that no one would believe her predictions. During the legendary Trojan War, she foresaw the Greek strategy of the Trojan horse, but her warnings were scorned. Cassandra later married the Greek hero Agamemnon and had visions of trouble for both of them. Her husband paid no heed and the two of them were murdered by Clytemnestra, Agamemnon's first wife.

Related Place Setting

Sophia

Related Heritage Floor Entries

Antigone
Arachne
Atalanta
Camilla
Circe
Clytemnestra
Daphne
Hecuba
Helen of Troy

Hersilia
Lysistrata
Pandora
Praxagora
Pythia
Sibyl of Cumae
Rhea Silva
Vesta
Virginia

Last updated April 13, 2007.
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