Odysseus Before Nausicaa

In the sixth book of the Odyssey, Odysseus is washed up naked on the shore of the Phaeacians after a shipwreck. The king's daughter Nausicaa has come down to the river with her maids to wash clothes, and when the stranger steps out of the bushes the maids scatter. As the museum points out, only Nausicaa stays where she is and offers him protection. Dutch readers could follow the story in their own language. In 1561 the humanist Dirck Coornhert had published a rhymed translation of the first 12 books, and it was reprinted in 1593, 1598 and 1606, the years of Lastman's youth in Amsterdam. Lastman painted the meeting twice. A first version, dated 1609, is in Braunschweig, and ten years later he came back to the subject with this panel of 1619.