塞壬与尤利西斯

When Etty unveiled this in 1837, it split the room. Some critics admired the huge canvas, nearly 15 feet across, and others called the sirens tasteless. It shows the moment from Homer when Ulysses has himself lashed to the mast so he can hear the sirens' song and survive it, while his crew row on with their ears stopped. But the real drama happened after the varnish dried. Etty had mixed a strong glue into his paint as a stabiliser, and it began to flake almost at once. Within about 20 years the picture was judged too ruined to hang, and it went into the gallery's storeroom. There it stayed for over 150 years. A long restoration started in 2003, and only in 2010 did the sirens come back onto the wall. Look low along the shore and you can still find the bones of earlier sailors who never made it past them.