| The Sorrow of Telemachus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Angelica Kauffman  |
| Year | 1783 |
| Medium | oil paint, canvas |
| Dimensions | 83.2 cm (32.8 in) × 114.3 cm (45.0 in) |
| Location | Metropolitan Museum of Art |
| Accession No. | 25.110.187 |
| Identifiers | The Met object ID: 436809 |
The Sorrow of Telemachus is a 1783 oil painting by Angelica Kauffman. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. [1]
This painting and Telemachus and the Nymphs of Calypso were painted for Monsignor Onorato Caetani (1742-1797) . They show scenes from the French novel The Adventures of Telemachus published by François Fénelon in 1699, and based on the story of Telemachus, son of Odysseus. [1] [2] [3]
Telemachus was shipwrecked off Calypso's island, and in this image she tells her nymphs to stop singing Odysseus's praises because of his son's grief. [3]
Kauffman painted two other versions of this work: in 1788 (held by the Bündner Museum of Art in Chur, Switzerland, and in 1789 (sold by Christie's in London in April 1998). [4]
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Iliad, the poem is divided into 24 books. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the war itself, which lasted ten years, his journey lasted for ten additional years, during which time he encountered many perils and all his crew mates were killed. In his absence, Odysseus was assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus had to contend with a group of unruly suitors who were competing for Penelope's hand in marriage.
Telemachus, in Greek mythology, is the son of Odysseus and Penelope, who is a central character in Homer's Odyssey. When Telemachus reached manhood, he visited Pylos and Sparta in search of his wandering father. On his return to Ithaca, he found that Odysseus had reached home before him.
In Greek mythology, Eumaeus was Odysseus's swineherd and friend. His father, Ktesios son of Ormenos was king of an island called Syra, although it has also been suggested that Eumaeus referred to Syracuse, Sicily.
In Greek mythology, Nausinous was the son of Odysseus and Calypso.
Maria Anna Angelika Kauffmann, usually known in English as Angelica Kauffman, was a Swiss Neoclassical painter who had a successful career in London and Rome. Remembered primarily as a history painter, Kauffmann was a skilled portraitist, landscape and decoration painter. She was, along with Mary Moser, one of two female painters among the founding members of the Royal Academy in London in 1768.
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Francesco Bartolozzi was an Italian engraver, whose most productive period was spent in London. He is noted for popularizing the "crayon" method of engraving.
In Greek mythology, Calypso was a nymph who lived on the island of Ogygia, where, according to Homer's Odyssey, she detained Odysseus for seven years. She promised Odysseus immortality if he would stay with her, but Odysseus preferred to return home.
Nathaniel Hone was an Irish-born portrait and miniature painter, and one of the founder members of the Royal Academy in 1768.
Arnold Böcklin was a Swiss symbolist painter.
Herbert James Draper was an English Classicist painter whose career began in the Victorian era and extended through the first two decades of the 20th century.
Eucharis, who does not appear in Greek mythology, was one of the nymph Calypso's attendants in Fénelon's novel Les Aventures de Télémaque (1699). In Fénelon's modern prose epic, an improvisation upon Homeric themes, Telemachus while searching for his father, Odysseus, has been shipwrecked on Calypso's island, and there has fallen in love with Eucharis but must leave her, dutifully to pursue his quest.
The Odyssey is a 1997 American mythology–adventure television miniseries based on the ancient Greek epic poem by Homer, the Odyssey. Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, the miniseries aired in two parts beginning on May 18, 1997, on NBC. It was filmed in Malta, Turkey, parts of England and many other places around the Mediterranean, where the story takes place. The cast includes Armand Assante, Greta Scacchi, Irene Papas, Isabella Rossellini, Bernadette Peters, Eric Roberts, Geraldine Chaplin, Jeroen Krabbé, Christopher Lee and Vanessa Williams.
The Medici Vase is a monumental marble bell-shaped krater sculpted in Athens in the second half of the 1st century AD as a garden ornament for the Roman market. It is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens's highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. His unique and immensely popular Baroque style emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality, which followed the immediate, dramatic artistic style promoted in the Counter-Reformation. Rubens was a painter producing altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. He was also a prolific designer of cartoons for the Flemish tapestry workshops and of frontispieces for the publishers in Antwerp.
Wendy Wassyng Roworth is professor emerita of art history at the University of Rhode Island. Roworth is a specialist in eighteenth century British and Italian art and the art of Angelica Kauffman.
Telemachus and the Nymphs of Calypso is a 1782 oil painting by Angelica Kauffman. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Onorato Caetani was an Italian scholar who was Principal of the Accademia degli Incolti in Rome in 1762. The academy was an institution founded by the Nazareno College originally dedicated to promoting a coherent balanced education.
In Greek mythology, Telegonus was the youngest son of Circe and Odysseus and thus, brother to Agrius and Latinus or Nausithous. In some accounts, he was called the son of the nymph Calypso and Odysseus instead.
Ariadne Abandoned by Theseus was painted in England in 1774 by the Swiss artist Angelica Kauffman. It is currently displayed in the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston as a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Harris Masterson III. It is an oil painting on canvas. Ariadne Abandoned by Theseus is one of Kauffman's few history paintings depicting a single figure.
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