Circe Invidiosa

What does the painting show?

A woman holds a shallow bowl, and a narrow green stream falls from it towards the water near her feet.

The Art Gallery of South Australia’s audio-guide transcript identifies the painting with Ovid’s story of Circe poisoning the sea used by Scylla. It translates the title as ‘Envious Circe’. ^[6]

Look at the shallow bowl held in front of the woman’s chest. The bowl has a pale rim above its green lower body. Follow the stream leaving the front of the bowl. Follow that narrow stream down in front of the robe on the viewer’s right until it reaches the water near her feet. The painting gives the eye a route through a tall composition: bowl, stream, feet, water.

The Art Gallery of South Australia records Waterhouse’s Circe Invidiosa as an 1892 oil painting, measuring 180.7 by 87.4 cm. Its accession number is 0.106. ^[1] Start with the complete picture before moving to the lower detail.

Circe’s face is close to the bowl, while her arms extend beneath its sides. The robe occupies much of the narrow central space. A dark brown background surrounds the upper figure; blue-green water opens out around the lower part. Notice the figure’s central position and the water extending on either side of the robe.

Circe, Glaucus and Scylla

In Henry T. Riley’s translation of Book XIV of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Glaucus asks Circe for help in making Scylla share his love. Circe proposes that he return her own affection. Glaucus refuses, and she turns her anger towards Scylla. She prepares harmful herbs and contaminates Scylla’s favoured bay with drugs. When Scylla enters the water, she discovers barking monsters attached to her body. ^[3]

Riley’s translation includes the conversation with Glaucus, Glaucus’s rejection of Circe and Scylla’s arrival. ^[3] These events are not all visible in the painting. Waterhouse’s composition gives us a figure, a bowl and a falling stream.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s past Dangerous Beauty exhibition presented Homer’s description of Scylla as a sea monster alongside Ovid’s account of her transformation. ^[4]

The Art Gallery of South Australia’s audio-guide transcript calls the water the sea. ^[6] Riley’s English translation describes a little bay. ^[3] The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition account uses a bathing pool. ^[4]

Look beneath the feet

Dark curved and fin-like forms surround Circe’s feet. Start with the bare feet, then examine the curved forms on either side and the area where the stream reaches the water. Looking at that lower part alongside the whole painting keeps the detail within the scene’s vertical arrangement.

The water and the robe share closely related colours. The exposed skin and the bowl help the upper figure stand out against the dark brown background.

Tansy Curtin, AGSA’s Curator of International Art pre-1980, places Waterhouse closer to an informal group known as the Olympians, who used Greek and Roman mythology to explore moral stories, while recognising that he followed many central Pre-Raphaelite ideas. In her interpretation, the elongated canvas and the ocean’s almost sickly aquamarine suggest an uncanny world beyond ordinary experience. ^[1]

A drawing and a painting

AGSA catalogues its Study for Circe Invidiosa as about 1892 and notes that the drawing itself is not dated. The record describes charcoal and brown chalk on white card. It distinguishes the image dimensions, 34.0 by 23.8 cm, from the sheet dimensions, 35.7 by 25.5 cm, and records the work as a gift from the artist in 1899. ^[2]

Looking at the museum’s digital reproduction, we see a head and upper shoulders, with dark hair framing the face. Open the museum’s study image alongside the whole painting and compare the downward angle of the head and the eyes beneath the brow. The displayed reproduction does not show the bowl or the water around the feet.

The study record gives two sets of measurements: one for the image and one for the sheet. ^[2] The painting’s recorded dimensions are 180.7 by 87.4 cm. ^[1] Both sets of study dimensions are smaller than those of the painting.

Acquisition and transport

The painting’s collection record lists its purchase in 1892 and says it was sent to Adelaide on a ship departing Southampton in February 1893. ^[1]

Curtin’s account describes a mixed reception when the painting was acquired for Adelaide in 1892. The newspaper example Curtin cites is the Daily Telegraph in 1893. ^[1]

Compare the two compositions

Antonio Tempesta’s Scylla Changed by Circe’s Spell is an etching from 1606, held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met). The record identifies it as plate 131 from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and gives its sheet as 10.4 by 11.5 cm. ^[5]

The Met titles Tempesta’s subject as Scylla changed by Circe’s spell. ^[5] The Art Gallery of South Australia’s transcript identifies Waterhouse’s scene as Circe poisoning the sea. ^[6]

The etching’s sheet is 10.4 by 11.5 cm, while AGSA records the painting as 180.7 by 87.4 cm. ^{[5] [1]} These measurements give a sense of their different physical scales.

In the print, several dog-like heads crowd the foreground around a figure standing in the water. A second figure with a fish-like tail reaches towards her from the left. Tempesta gives the dog-like heads much of the foreground. Waterhouse’s single figure occupies the tall centre, with curved forms low in the water.

The images here are not displayed to the same scale. Compare where each image directs attention.