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Richard Westall Neoclassical Mythology Drawing 1800s pencil on paper

1800s

About the Item

Drawing Pencil on paper, 17.7 x 26.7 inch; with gilded frame 28.3 x 37 inch The scene is set on the seashore, in the part were the stormy sea is licking the land, made of a rocky and wild nature. The composition is dominated by a diaphanous female figure, dresses up with a peplos and a tiara, who’s acting with discretion mixed with surprise; in front of there are two men-both of them dressed all’antica, an adult one standing still and a younger one on his knees-who are addressing to the lady not hiding a certain fear. The drawing tells about the moment when the son of Odysseus, Telemachus, and the goddess Athena transformed into Mentor, after a shipwreck, met the marine goddess Calypso on her island Ogygia, while she’s still suffering for the departure of the astute hero. The episode here described is a new interpretation on the theme of the first four chapters of the Odyssey, called Telemachy, referable to Les Aventures de Télémaque of the French monk François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon, published in 1699. The novel obtained a resounding success since it was published, so that various artist took inspiration from it. We mention, above all, in a chronological order Nicholas Vleughels, Angelica Kauffman, Thomas Stothard, Edward Francis Burney. The drawing here studied is relative to the oil on panel held in the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre, ex collection of the Scottish councillor, magistrate and art collector Archibald McLellan, signed Richard Westall and dated 1803; the work is preserved with his mythological theme pendant representing the following moment, so when Telemachus and Mentor are invited in the bower of Calypso. From the subject have been made several engravings, like the ones at the British Museum of the 1810 by Edward Scriven. Richard Westall was an important and productive neoclassical English painter, considered an “outstanding artist of the picturesque”, famous to be the drawing teacher of the queen Victoria. He left the Nortfolk County in the 1772 to move to London where he started his artistic apprentice until the 1785 when he joined the Royal Academy and, at the end of the century, he became an associate. Close friend of Lord Byron, who said about him that "the brush has beat the poetry”, and of Sir Thomas Lawrence, with whom he shared the house at 57 Greek Street in Soho. He worked in the John Boydel’s Shakespeare Gallery and was a collaborator of Johann Heinrich Füssli at the Milton Gallery. He became quite popular as a book illustrator and a watercolours artist, also.
  • Attributed to:
    Richard Westall (1765 - 1836, British)
  • Creation Year:
    1800s
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 11.15 in (28.3 cm)Width: 14.57 in (37 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Florence, IT
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU124027402732

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