How you can use this image

This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).

Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.

The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.

Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.

Buy a print or image licence

You can purchase this reproduction

If you have any products in your basket we recommend that you complete your purchase from Art UK before you leave our site to avoid losing your purchases.

Order a print

Notes

Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.

Penelope, accompanied by her attendants, is invoking the aid of Minerva (or Athene), represented by a statue standing on a round plinth. Telemachus, accompanied by Minerva (disguised as his old guardian Mentor) had set out to find his father, Ulysses, when he did not return home from the Trojan wars. He got waylaid and his mother is praying for his return.

The scene is told in Homer's 'Odyssey' but the artist may have used François Fénélon’s 'Les Aventures de Télémaque', published in 1699, as a source for the picture.