Ulysses recognized by his nurse on his return from Troy

In 1849 the young painters competing for the Prix de Rome in Paris were set a subject from Homer, and Bouguereau, 23 and only a few years up from the provinces, painted this. The scene is the moment in the Odyssey when Odysseus, home from Troy after 20 years and disguised as a beggar, is bathed by his old nurse Eurycleia, who feels the long scar on his leg and knows him at once. Bouguereau gives her the whole weight of the picture, kneeling, her hand on his knee, her face turned up to his. The prize that year went to Gustave Boulanger; Bouguereau won it the next. He was already committed to the polished classical manner the coming century would fight over. The painting now hangs in La Rochelle, the Atlantic port where he grew up.