Waterhouse Paintings
1849 - 1917 Painter,England, Victorian Romanticism
The Danaides, 1904
Oil on canvas, 60 5/8 x 43 5/8 inches (154.3 x 111.1 cm)
Private collection Mythological Art
Some background about this painting of Waterhouse :
Danaus had fifty daughters, the Danaides, and his twin brother, Aegyptus, had fifty sons. Aegyptus commanded that his sons marry the Danaides. Danaus elected to flee instead, and to that purpose he built a ship, the first ship that ever was. In it he fled to Argos, to which he was connected by his descent from Io, the maid wooed by Zeus and turned into a heifer and pursued by Hera until she found asylum in Egypt. So in a sense this was a homecoming for the sailor from Egypt. Argos at the time was ruled by King Pelasgus, the eponym of all autochthonous inhabitants who had lived in Greece since the beginning, also called there Gelanor (he who laughs). The Danaides ask Pelasgus for protection when they arrive, the event portrayed in The Suppliants by Aeschylus. Protection is granted after a vote by the Argives.
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