Les NUITS DE PENÉLOPE. De son époux absent l'adorable profil, Toujours à ses doux yeux brillait comme une étoile. Mais pour tramer trois ans et sa ruse et sa toile Il fallait qu'elle eut un fier fil. (Odyssés Ch. II. Trad. indiscrète de Mr. Villemain).

Trustman, Benjamin A., Trustman, Julia M. · 1842

Penelope is sleeping in front of a tapestry of her husband. This print shows Penelope, wife of Odysseus, mother of Telemachos, in a moment of relaxation looking lovingly at a portrait of her absent husband. Her loose dress however, might also indicate that she simply had a glass too many. There exists at the Munich Glyptothek (Inv. 473) a Roman copy of a Greek sculpture dating back to the third Century BC. entitled 'The Old Drunkard', which shows striking similarities to Daumier's print. A striking anachronism: the smoking gaslamp on the wall. During the 1840's, a quarrel between painters of the classic and romantic schools had fully flared up. Delacroix asked the "loaded" question: "Who is going to liberate us from the old Greeks?" Daumier succeeded to answer it his own way by showing historic personalities such as Hercules, Pygmalion or Agamemnon in absurd situations.