Cyrene, daughter of Hypseus, despised spinning, weaving and other womanly pursuits, and preferred to protect her father’s flocks by hunting wild beasts. Apollo fell in love with her when he saw her wrestling with a lion and winning. She bore him Aristaeus. The present picture shows her at rest, either on Mount Pelion overlooking her father's cattle or in the country to which Apollo carried her. Calvert’s art, particularly the Chamber Idyll, suggests that he had a relaxed acceptance of eroticism, unlike so many of his Victorian successors. His choice of the extremely unusual subject of Cyrene is part of this attitude and provides an interesting contrast with the more vulnerable classical heroines, such as Danae and Andromeda, chosen by Burne-Jones. The unusual subject also reflects Calvert’s broad classical erudition. The presence of sculptures from the Parthenon (the Elgin Marbles) in Britain exerted a decisive effect on the development of classicism. The figure of Cyrene suggests that Calvert studied the seated goddesses of the frieze. Calvert’s later paintings are very difficult to date, but Cyrene’s hairstyle suggests a date in the 1830’s or perhaps the 1840’s. Calvert was a follower of Blake and member of the ‘Ancients’. His early works, few in number, are tiny intense prints of bucolic and pastoral scenes. He later produced oil paintings of classical idylls, ceasing to exhibit, working only for his own pleasure and destroying much of what he produced. Calvert was born in Devon and entered the Navy, keeping up his interest in the classics and in drawing during his period of service, in which he visited Greece. He left the Navy after a close friend was killed during the bombardment of Algiers and decided to take up art. A meeting with Samuel Palmer’s cousin around 1824 led to an introduction to Palmer and Blake and membership of the ‘Ancients’. The masterpiece of his early period is the wood engraving The Chamber Idyll (1831), an erotic scene, less than 2 inches (4 centimetres) high. After this he abandoned engraving, perhaps because he knew he had reached perfection of expression, perhaps because of eye problems with fine work. In later years he was a recluse and developed complex theories of music and colour. His later art is an expression of his interest in classical culture and his personal paganism which led him to erect an altar to Pan in the back garden of his house near Hampton Court.(1) Raymond Lister’s biography appeared in 1962. 1. A. M. W. Stirling, The Richmond Papers, (William Heinemann, London l926), page 99