Erigone

Erigone (1865) at the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille depicts the daughter of Icarius in Greek mythology — Icarius having been killed by peasants who believed the wine Dionysus had taught him to make was poison. Erigone, searching for her father with her dog Maira, found his burial place and hanged herself in grief. Dionysus, moved by her devotion, transformed her into the constellation Virgo. The subject combined grief, devotion, metamorphosis, and the ambivalent power of Dionysus — all themes consistent with Moreau's Symbolist preoccupations. Erigone's story was less commonly treated than the major Dionysiac myths, which allowed Moreau to approach the subject without the weight of canonical precedent. The Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille holds this as part of a significant collection of French Romantic and academic painting.

The young female figure in an outdoor setting associated with Dionysiac mythology — vineyard, grapevines, autumn landscape — allows Moreau to combine figure painting with atmospheric landscape. The figure's grief is conveyed through pose and expression while the surrounding natural setting carries the seasonal and mythological resonances of the subject.