The Sirens and Ulysses

The Sirens and Ulysses, painted in 1837 and now in Manchester Art Gallery, is one of Etty's largest and most ambitious mythological compositions, depicting the Homeric episode where Ulysses is lashed to the mast while his crew rows past the deadly Sirens. The painting provided Etty with an excuse to paint multiple nude female figures in a dramatically charged narrative setting. The large canvas — over three meters wide — demonstrates his aspiration to grand-scale history painting in the tradition of Rubens and the Venetians. The Manchester Art Gallery houses important Victorian-era paintings reflecting the cultural ambitions of the city's industrialist patrons, who invested heavily in building one of Britain's finest provincial collections.

The painting's rich, Venetian palette of warm flesh tones against deep marine blues demonstrates Etty's mastery of color. The ambitious scale and the careful rendering of multiple nude figures reflect his decades of study from the life model at the Royal Academy.