Cleveland Museum of Art

Mercury Orders Calypso to Allow Ulysses Depart

Gerard de Lairesse

Date

c. 1670

Medium

etching

Culture

Netherlands

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

In Homer’s Odyssey , Odysseus spends seven years captive to the nymph Calypso. Despite Calypso’s charms, Odysseus longed to return home to his family. In this composition, De Lairesse depicts the moment when the Olympian gods intervene, sending Hermes to release Odysseus from Calypso’s captivity. The Dutch De Lairesse brought French artistic taste to the Netherlands, reflected here in the firmly modeled, idealized figures and classical architecture. A painting by this artist of the same subject is also in the museum’s collection (see 1992.2).

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