3-066-066 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

By The Sea, 1881. 'The scene here represented, which may have been found by the Artist at some nameless secluded watering-place on the Mediterranean coasts, is that of a rocky cove, just outside the mouth of a narrow and winding inlet, where the stone-pine grows on the cliffs above, and we see an old fort or castle in the background, guarding the passage into a mountainous land. Women and children have come to this sequestered retreat for the purpose of bathing, and one damsel brings a basket full of linen towels, or a change of garments, to serve their need. It reminds us of Nausicaa and her maidens, in the "Odyssey," for the classic antique seems to come nearer, in such open-air bathing experiences, apart from the elaborate arrangements of fashionable seaside resorts, than in most other transactions of modern life. The Italian cut and rig of the fishing-boats drawn up on the beach will not escape remark, as leading us to conjecture that the scene might possibly be identified with some place on the Calabrian or Sicilian shores. So much the nearer to the primitive heroic age of Homer's immortal romance'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.