Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, United States
This painting, by the Swiss artist Angelica Kauffmann, depicts a scene of the sea deity, Calypso, and her entourage of five other nymphs, playing host to two important guests who appeared on Calypso’s island. One guest is the youth in tan or gold garments, sitting despondently at the table. This young man is Telemachus, son of the famous Greek hero, Odysseus (or the Roman Ulysses), whose adventures were told in Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. Behind Telemachus, a grey-haired and long-bearded figure can be seen. All of the other characters know the old fellow by the alias, Mentor, but the person is really the goddess Athena (or the Roman Minerva) in a magical disguise. Despite these characters, Angelica Kauffmann’s painting does not take its inspiration from a scene in Homer’s ancient epics, nor does it recreate any other ancient Greek or Roman myths about Telemachus, Athena/Minerva, and Calypso. Instead, the painting re-creates a scene from a book called The Adventures of Telemachus, published in 1699 by Archbishop François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon of Cambrai (his name can thankfully be shortened to François Fénelon). In this curious Odyssey spinoff, François Fénelon expanded on and added to the escapades and experiences that Telemachus underwent while he waited for his father to return home from the Trojan War, including the encounter with Calypso seen above.
