Le RETOUR D'ULYSSE. Aux portes du palais, son caniche fidèle Seul de ses vieux amis le reconnut soudain, Et fut, sublime instinct! s'emparer d'une écuelle Pour seconder Ulysse en son rusé dessein. (Odyssée, Poésies légères de Mr. Vatout.)

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

This lithograph shows a fragment of graved stone with a picture Ulysses is returning home with his poodle by his side. 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.