The Enchanted Castle

Francis Danby was an Irish painter of the Romantic era. He is famous for imaginative and dramatic landscapes. Danby initially developed his style while he was the central figure in a group of artists who have come to be known as the Bristol School. Danby's Bristol works were landscapes and topographical views; by 1820, however, he had begun experimenting with literary, mythological, and biblical subjects. This atmospheric painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1841 with the unattributed quotation appended to the title: "O! how can mortals hope for bliss,/When fairies grieve in place like this." Previously it was wrongly cataloged as Calypso Grieving for her Lost Lover (1825), but it has since been identified as The Enchanted Castle. This attribution is based on the fact that the subject of Psyche, Eros, and the enchanted castle, taken from the satirical allegory by the second-century author Apuleius, fits the painting, while that of Calypso does not.

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