Penelope and the Suitors (1912) By J.W. Waterhouse

John William Waterhouse (baptised 6 April 1849; died 10 February 1917) was an English painter known for working in the Pre-Raphaelite style. He worked several decades after the breakup of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which had seen its heydey in the mid-nineteenth century, leading him to have gained the moniker of "the modern Pre-Raphaelite".

 

Borrowing stylistic influences not only from the earlier Pre-Raphaelites but also from his contemporaries, the Impressionists, his artworks were known for their depictions of women from both ancient Greek mythology and Arthurian legend.

 

John William Waterhouse painting is all about. Penelope was the daughter of Icarius and also a first cousin of Helen of Troy. She was the wife of Odysseus and was famous for her cleverness and for her faithfulness to her husband. 

 

When Odysseus failed to return from the Trojan War (he was delayed for ten years on his way home), Penelope was beset by suitors who wanted her to remarry. In order to delay them, she insisted that she could not remarry until she had finished weaving a shroud for Odysseus' father, Laertes. She worked each day at her loom, and then unravelled the cloth each night.

 

After three years of successful delay, one of her servants revealed her deception, and the impatient suitors angrily demanded that she choose one of them for her husband immediately. At the prompting of Athene, Penelope said that she would marry the man who could string Odysseus' bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axes. By this time, Odysseus himself had secretly returned, disguised as a beggar; he passed the test of the bow, and then proceeded to slaughter the suitors who had tormented his wife. 

 

While her husband, Ulysees, was absent fighting in the Trojan War, Penelope waited faithfully for him in Ithaca. When he failed to return at the end of the war she was plagued by persistent suitors and, even though she remained aloof, the local noblemen could not be discouraged. Desperate to avoid re-marriage, she conceived the idea of postponing her decision until she had completed weaving a piece of tapestry intended as a shroud for Laertes, Ulysees' father. Every night she unravelled the job she had done during the day thereby prolonging her labour until the return of Ulysees finally delivered her in the suitors.

 

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