Penelope 1869

Dante Gabriel Rossetti made Penelope using pastels, likely in the 1860s or 70s. Here, the artist imagines the wife of Odysseus, famed in Homer’s Odyssey for her fidelity. While her husband was away, presumed lost at sea, she fended off a crowd of suitors by promising to choose one of them when she had finished weaving a burial shroud for her father-in-law. Each night, she secretly undid her day’s work, prolonging the task indefinitely. Rossetti was fascinated by the symbolism of this act, and by the sheer labor that it entailed. Penelope is shown holding the thread in her hand, a signal of her agency. But the muted quality of the pastel is evocative too, not only of the passage of time but of the repetitious, painstaking nature of weaving itself. As with any craft, weaving can be a form of resistance, as well as a testament to the dignity of work.