Lot Essay
The subject of the picture is taken ultimately from Homer's Odyssey, where Telemachus, on his long journey to find his lost father Odysseus, is shipwrecked with his companion Mentor, Minerva in disguise. They are confronted by the Nymph Calypso, daughter of Atlas, on the island of Ogygia, where previously Odysseus had spent seven years with her eventually "longing for the sight of the smoke rising from his own hearthstone", and departing against her wishes.
Benjamin West painted this subject five times but the only other known surviving version is that in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (von Erffa and Staley, op.cit., no.183). West first treated the subject in c.1772, a composition only known from the 1824 engraving by Hurst and Robinson. This picture was last recorded in the 1830's in the collection of James Dunlop. As von Erffa and Staley point out (op.cit., p.259), the date of the present picture, 1801, would suggest that it was the painting exhibited by West at the Royal Academy in that year, in which case the early provenance of the painting can be established.
Benjamin West painted this subject five times but the only other known surviving version is that in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (von Erffa and Staley, op.cit., no.183). West first treated the subject in c.1772, a composition only known from the 1824 engraving by Hurst and Robinson. This picture was last recorded in the 1830's in the collection of James Dunlop. As von Erffa and Staley point out (op.cit., p.259), the date of the present picture, 1801, would suggest that it was the painting exhibited by West at the Royal Academy in that year, in which case the early provenance of the painting can be established.