3-028-495 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Royal Academy Gold Medal Picture: "Ulysses and the Nurse", by F. Trevelyan Goodall, 1870. Engraving of a painting, winner of the Royal Academy students' prize '...for the " best historical painting"...the young painter is the son of Mr. Frederick Goodall, the eminent Academician...The subject...[is] drawn from Homer's "Odyssey"; the return of Ulysses...and his recognition by the old nurse, Euryclea, his foster-mother...Ulysses...had at last landed at Ithaca - assuming the disguise of a beggar...thus deceiving his faithful Penelope...Full of gratitude and admiration of the wisdom and gentle manners of the poor guest, Penelope had ordered him a bath, with Euryclea as attendant...the already-aroused suspicions of the old nurse are suddenly changed into certainty at sight of the scar left on Ulysses' leg...The stern enjoinder of Ulysses on his foster-mother to preserve the secret...lest she should discover him to Penelope and mar his plot of vengeance...[is] the moment selected for representation...Composition, drawing, light and shade and colour, are all most creditable. The accessories, too, are thoroughly well considered - the massive early Greek architecture, the forms and ornaments, and the wall-painting of the Parnassus boar-hunt'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.