Ariadne Abandoned by Theseus

Kauffmann painted this in London in 1774, at the height of her English years. She was then one of only two women among the founding members of the Royal Academy, set up a few years earlier in 1768, and a regular at its exhibitions. The subject is Ariadne on the island of Naxos, waking to find that Theseus, the hero she had helped escape the labyrinth, has sailed off without her. Kauffmann gives the whole canvas to that single moment of realisation, with his ship already small on the water behind her. A history painting on this scale built around one abandoned figure was unusual for her, and unusual for any woman expected to keep to portraits and decorative work in that decade.