depicting Telemachus fleeing Calypso and the island of Ogygia

Overall dimensions: 96 1/2” wide x 89 ½” high

(Painting itself): 85 ¾” wide x 79 ½” high

[Telemachus was the son of Ulysses and Penelope.  The Odyssey by Homer relates that when his father failed to return home at the end of the Trojan War, Telemachus set out to search for him accompanied by the Goddess Athena, who was disguised as his old guardian, Mentor.

The story was elaborated in a romance “The Adventures of Telemachus” by the French writer Fenelon, published in 1699 and this was the source for French artists of the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries.  Fenelon relates how Telemachus was shipwrecked on the island of the nymph Calypso, where Ulysses too had been wrecked and kept by Calypso who had wanted to marry him.  Similarly, Calypso fell in love with Telemachus and detained him by persuading him to relate his previous adventures.  Venus sent Cupid to aid her in her designs, but Telemachus fell in love with Eucharis, one of Calypso’s nymphs, provoking the goddess’s wrath].

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