Caetani-apostolic protonotary, savant, and writer-belonged to an ancient and noble Roman family and was a younger son. Both compositions are friezes, with similarly constructed backgrounds the prices and sizes are identical they must have been intended as pendants. The first entry is dated Naples 1782 and the second Rome 1783. Kauffmann describes the pictures in her Memoria delle piture (Knight 1998) and records that they were commissioned by Monsignor Onorato Caetani. In the second ( 25.110.187), Calypso silences the nymphs who have been singing Odysseus’s praises when she sees the sadness of his son. At left the elderly, bearded Mentor is led away by Calypso herself. In the first scene (25.110.188), Calypso's nymphs gather around Telemachus, offering him fruit, wine, and a garland of flowers. Telemachus, guided by Athena in the guise of Mentor, was shipwrecked off Calypso’s island while searching for his father. These two scenes from the life of Telemachus, son of Odysseus, are based on the novel The Adventures of Telemachus, published by the influential French theologian and political theorist François Fénelon in 1699, and popular throughout Europe during the eighteenth century.
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