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Francis Sydney Muschamp’s Penelope



Author(s)

Liana De Girolami Cheney

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DOI:10.17265/2328-2177/2024.11.001

University of Massachusetts, Lowell, USA

This essay examines Francis Sydney Muschamp’s depictions of the Penelope myth during the Victorian era. The Penelope myth, a significant narrative in the Victorian era, was popularized by the Pre-Raphaelite painters Thomas Seddon (1821-1856), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829-1908), Frederick Sandys (1829-1904), and John William Waterhouse (1849-1917). Their interpretations of this epic poem from Homer’s Odyssey (800 BCE) inspired Muschamp (1851-1929). He often depicted Penelope’s unwavering fidelity and patience as female virtuosity and a cunning perception of family values during her husband Odysseus’s long absence. Historically, Penelope was the Queen of Ithaca and the loyal wife of King Odysseus (Ulysses). During her husband’s 20-year absence while fighting in the Trojan Wars, Penelope was pursued by suitors competing for her affection and insisting that Odysseus was dead. Despite their advances, Penelope refused to believe that she had been widowed or abandoned. She devised various tricks to keep the suitors at bay. For example, she told them she would choose one of them to marry after completing a woven funeral shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes. Every day, she worked diligently on the tapestry, a shroud, while the impatient suitors watched her progress, but she secretly unraveled the day’s work at night when they were asleep. The tapestry became known as Penelope’s Web.

Pre-Raphaelite art, Francis Sydney Muschamp, symbolism, mythology, Penelope, Egyptology