Ulysses and Nausicaa

In this painting Lucas van Uden represents an episode from Homer's Odyssey. Ulysses hides behind a bush after being shipwrecked on the Phaecian shore. Naked and exhausted, he asks Nausicaä, daughter of King Alcinous, for help while she washes her clothes in the river, surrounded by her attendants. The goddess Athena intercedes on behalf of the hero in front of Zeus, who is seated among the clouds above. Alcionous's palace and a distant town appear as part of the mountainous landscape in the background.

This painting is a reduced copy of Rubens's Odysseus in the land of the Phaecians (Pitti Palace, Florence), representing the episode narrated in Homer's Odyssey (VI). It might have been painted in Rubens's studio by van Uden, who produced and etched copies of Rubens’s landscapes in the 1630s. The grid that was drawn for this purpose is still visible.