The Reconciliation of Helen and Paris after his Defeat by Menelaus

Richard Westall's The Reconciliation of Helen and Paris after his Defeat by Menelaus of 1805 takes its subject from Homer's Iliad, depicting the scene in Book III where Paris, having been rescued by Aphrodite from his duel with Menelaus, is returned to Helen's chamber. Helen is disgusted by Paris's cowardice and reluctant to receive him, but Aphrodite compels her; the scene is one of Homer's most psychologically sophisticated. Westall was one of the most prolific illustrators of literary subjects in British Romantic painting, producing works that served as book illustrations, engravings, and exhibition pictures. His treatment of this scene from the Trojan War allowed him to display the figure painting and emotional nuance that the subject demanded. The Tate's picture is a characteristic example of his classical literary painting.

Westall organizes the composition around the tension between Helen's reluctance and Paris's expectant desire, the goddess Aphrodite present as a guiding presence. Drapery and figure are rendered in the smooth, idealized manner of Neoclassical academic painting. The color is warm and sensuous, appropriate to the subject's erotic undertone, without the cool austerity of strict Davidian Neoclassicism.