Penelope with the Bow of Ulysses

drawing height: 18 cm
drawing width: 15 cm
mount height: 42 cm
mount width: 29.8 cm

This drawing is labelled ‘Penelope with the Bow of Ulyssis. Very Early,’ giving us both the subject and an estimated date. It shows Penelope, the wife of Ulysses (Odysseus), holding his bow across her lap while two attendants hover over her. The bow was so strong that only Ulysses could string it. This was how Penelope recognised him when he returned from twenty years away at war and at sea. The very fine lines defining clear contours suggest that Watts was interested in the prints of John Flaxman, who illustrated both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Flaxman’s designs were influential in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He often illustrated classical subjects with sharp, graphic lines and little shading, which often appeared on Wedgwood pottery.

Labelled in pencil as ‘Penelope with the Bow of Ulyssis. [sic] Very Early,’ this pen wash drawing shows Watts’s interest in the Homeric epics the Illiad and the Odyssey even in his youth. The drawing, which uses clear, simply contours in pen and light washes of brownish ink, illustrates the pensive queen Penelope attended by two women. She holds Ulysses’ (Odysseus) bow, which was so sturdy that only Ulysses could string it. When Ulysses returned to Ithaca after twenty years away—ten years in the Trojan War and another ten making his way back—he returned in disguise. One of the signs that he was in fact Ulysses and not a beggar was that he could string and draw the bow and fire it accurately, which he demonstrated in a contest at the court.

This early drawing shows the influence of John Flaxman graphic work, particularly illustrations for the Iliad and Odyssey [1]. Flaxman’s work was used repeatedly in translations of the texts throughout the nineteenth century. Mary Watts noted that as a sickly child, out of regular formal education, Watts read the Iliad and that ‘he entered freely and of his own choice into the Greek mind, through such translations as were accessible to him’ [2]. Flaxman’s neoclassical emphasis on finely drawn, clear contours translated well from drawing to printmaking to ceramics decoration for Wedgwood pottery. Watts may also have seen Fuseli’s illustrations for Alexander Pope’s translation of the Odyssey, which include one plate of Penelope with the boy of Ulysses [3]. Watts may have taken the seated, melancholy figure holding the bow in one hand as inspiration for his drawing. Watts’s work may also derive from prints after Angelica Kauffman’s painting Penelope at Her Loom, of which several versions exist [4]. By contrast, Flaxman’s illustration of Penelope with the bow shows her standing, carrying the bow and quiver of her husband whom she believed to be dead, while a party of men can be seen through an open door. These are the suitors who have spent Ulysses’ absence trying to marry her and take his kingdom, and whom Ulysses will kill with the bow upon his return.

Watts’s early drawing focuses on the melancholy Penelope and her attendants. The shadowy, undefined background gives a sense of being indoors, perhaps in a space with columns, but does not convey the richness of the palace of Ithaca or the narrative details of Penelope’s story, such as the loom upon which she wove (and then unravelled nightly) a shroud for her father-in-law, or the bed carved from a living olive tree which was one of the signs by which she recognised her husband. Instead, the focus is on her emotional state.

Footnotes:

[1] John Flaxman, The Iliad of Homer engraved from the compositions of John Flaxman R.A. Sculptor, London (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, R.H.Evans, W.Miller, & I&A. Arch, March 1805).

[2] Mary Seton Watts, George Frederic Watts: the Annals of an Artist’s Life, vol. 1 (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd, 1912), p. 14.

[3] Homer, trans. Alexander Pope, The Iliad of Homer (London : Printed for F. J. Du Roveray by T. Bensley, Bolt Court, and sold by J. and A. Arch, Cornhill, and E. Lloyd, Harley Street, 1805).

[4] Angelica Kauffmann, Penelope weeping over the bow of Ulysses, c. 1761-80. Wolverhampton Art Gallery, OP531.

Text by Dr Melissa Gustin