Emma Hart (c.1765–1815), Lady Hamilton, as Calypso

Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton, was George Romney's greatest obsession as a subject — he painted her more than fifty times between their first meeting around 1782 and his departure from London in 1799. This 1792 canvas, depicting her as Calypso from Homer's Odyssey, is among the mythological role-paintings Romney produced for her, in which she performed poses and attitudes for him while he translated them rapidly to canvas. Emma, the daughter of a blacksmith, had risen through London society to become the mistress and eventually the wife of Sir William Hamilton, British envoy to Naples — and later the celebrated companion of Admiral Horatio Nelson. Romney's mythological portraits of her are extraordinary documents of the age's fascination with theatrical self-transformation and classical identity. Calypso, the nymph who detained Odysseus on her island for seven years, offered a mythological frame for themes of desire, entrapment, and feminine power — themes with obvious personal resonance given Romney's own attachment to his sitter. The painting is now at Waddesdon Manor.

Romney paints Emma with the loose, energetic facture that characterised his best work with her — the face and neck are handled with a freshness that academic portraits of the era rarely achieved. The atmospheric, indeterminate background dissolves behind the figure, giving the composition an almost visionary quality. The mythological costume is suggested rather than carefully described, prioritising the emotional impression over literal detail.