PRÉSENTATION D'ULYSSE A NAUSICA. A l'aspect du héros souillé de limon noir, Tout fuit, mais Nausica dans sa pudeur naïve; Lui dit en rougissant sans quitter sa lessive: Quel Dieu noble étranger t'amène en mon lavoir? (Traduction inédite de Mr. Casimir Delavigne).

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

Ulysses arrives in a village and meets Nausicaa. Odysseus and Nausicaa. While all her friends are fleeing, leaving their laundry behind, Nausicaa is heroically facing the stranger. The rest is history. 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.