Ulysses at the Table of Circe (The Odyssey of Homer)
Flaxman, the finest British sculptor of the late eighteenth century, achieved international acclaim for his spare outline illustrations to Homer, Aeschylus and Dante. Before he arrived in Rome in 1787, Flaxman exhibited portraits and classical subjects in terracotta and plaster in London, and designed decorative reliefs for Josiah Wedgwood. During the seven years he spent in Italy, the sculptor developed a striking new style of outline drawing to illustrate Homer's Iliad and Odyssey for private patrons, and the images were then engraved and published in Italy, France and Britain. Contemporaries saw these images as strikingly primitive, echoing the style of Greek vase painting, and well suited to archaic poetic subjects. Flaxman preferred to represent figures in profile, based furniture and costume on ancient sources, and used open expanses of white paper to great psychological effect.
Here, Odysseus (or Ulysses) engages in a test of wills with the beautiful sorceress Circe, who tempts the hero to partake of enchanted food and drink, already used to turn his companions into swine. Lines of poetry below come from a 1726 translation of Homer's Odyssey by Alexander Pope:
Circe in vain invites the feast to share;
Absent I ponder, and absorb'd in care;
While scenes of woe rose anxious in my breast,
The queen beheld me, and these words address'd:
"'Why sits Ulysses silent and apart,
Some hoard of grief close harbour'd at his heart
Untouch'd before thee stand the cates [food] divine,
And unregarded laughs the rosy wine."
Here, Odysseus (or Ulysses) engages in a test of wills with the beautiful sorceress Circe, who tempts the hero to partake of enchanted food and drink, already used to turn his companions into swine. Lines of poetry below come from a 1726 translation of Homer's Odyssey by Alexander Pope:
Circe in vain invites the feast to share;
Absent I ponder, and absorb'd in care;
While scenes of woe rose anxious in my breast,
The queen beheld me, and these words address'd:
"'Why sits Ulysses silent and apart,
Some hoard of grief close harbour'd at his heart
Untouch'd before thee stand the cates [food] divine,
And unregarded laughs the rosy wine."
Artwork Details
- Title: Ulysses at the Table of Circe (The Odyssey of Homer)
- Artist: After John Flaxman (British, York 1755–1826 London)
- Engraver: James Parker (British, London 1750–1805 London)
- Publisher: John and Arthur Arch (London)
- Publisher: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown
- Publisher: Jane Matthews (London)
- Publisher: William Miller (British, 1769–1844)
- Subject of book: Homer (Greek, active 13th or 8th century BCE)
- Subject of book: Aeschylus (Greek, ca. 525 BCE–ca. 455 BCE Gela, Sicily)
- Subject of book: Hesiod (Greek, active ca. 700 BCE)
- Published in: London
- Date: 1805
- Medium: Line engraving
- Dimensions: Image and text: 7 11/16 × 10 1/4 in. (19.5 × 26.1 cm)
- Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Gift of Harvey Smith, 1977
- Object Number: 1977.595.53(16)
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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Multiple artists/makers
1795–1817
John Flaxman
ca. 1794
John Flaxman
John Philip Kemble
18th–19th century
John Flaxman
1780–1850
John Flaxman
18th–19th century
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