Alcyone's Farewell to her Husband. From Ovid's Metamorphoses, Song XI

In the autumn of 1813 Eckersberg was in Rome, working on two companion pieces: both were mythological paintings, commissioned by Nathanson, of scenes from the tragic love story of Queen Alcyone and King Ceyx from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The choice of subject matter was highly unusual, but he may have gotten the idea from the contemporary French art scene, via another Danish artist of Eckersberg’s generation, Kratzenstein Stub (cf. Monrad, 1990, 77–81). The first painting shows Alcyone waving farewell to Ceyx from tall cliffs while a storm is brewing out at sea. This allows Eckersberg to include a depiction of very accurately observed nature in the narrative. The painting has been cropped on three sides and shows only a fragment of the original composition. It is likely that the departing Ceyx was originally seen sailing away to the left (as has been pointed out by Jesper Svenningsen, see page 128). The cropping may have been done because of a lack of coherence between foreground and background.