Drama is central to this motif, and Thorvaldsen has correspondingly worked with quick, tentative lines. As early as 1801, inspired by the collections in the Museo Capitolino, he was already taken by the Amazon motif, and he both drew and modelled the group representing Achilles and the dying Penthesilea. In 1805-10 he produced a series of rapid sketches in which the war-trained Amazons are seen in fierce battle on the side of the Trojans during the Greek siege of Troy.
