Lost Labour of the Danaides. 1900. Oil on canvas. 35 5/8 x 27 3/4 inches (90.5 x 70.5 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy of Koller Auctions, Zurich.
Storey exhibited this painting at the Royal Academy in 1900, no. 107, where it was accompanied by this quotation in the catalogue:
The lost labour of the Danaides — typical of human life
The lost Danaides drag their endless round
In dismal Hades, there to expiate
Their nuptial crime, and fill the wasteful font
With mortal tears, alas! and there to know
The long regret, the ill no grief can mend.
The weary duty no time can end.
The mythological background to the subject was explained by Adrian Margaux in The Windsor Magazine:
The Lost Labour of the Danaides and Plutos Messenger are comparatively recent examples of Mr. Storey's occasional excursions into classic regions. The Danaides, it may be remembered, are the daughters of King Danae of Argos, who, for murdering their husbands in obedience to their father, were employed in the nether world in continually filling with water a vessel which was full of holes. In Mr. Storey's picture their fruitless task is intended to represent the lost labour of Human Life, time for ever running out. [627]
A critic for The Art Journal felt this was the most important picture Storey exhibited that year: "Of the several contributions of Mr. G. A. Storey, including one or two portraits, The Lost Labour of the Danaides is the most important. The nine-and-forty daughters of Danaus, who married and murdered the sons of Aegyptus, and were doomed to ceaseless unproductive labour, have repeatedly formed the theme of literary and pictorial artists" (170). The Danaides had murdered their husbands on their wedding night.
A critic for The Antiquary felt the picture would have been indecipherable without the poetic quotation in the catalogue: "In the second gallery is a picture, the intended moral of which could not be detected without the catalogue's aid. It represents a group of six well-posed classic maidens, and others in the background, trifling with water jars, and looking somewhat lazy, tired, and peevish. It is called The Lost Labour of the Danaides — typical of Human Life (107), and is by George A. Storey, A. (180).
The most famous versions of this subject in Victorian art are the ones by John William Waterhouse, the first executed in 1904, the year prior to Storey exhibiting his example. Waterhouse's first version contained fewer figures and appears not to have been exhibited so Storey may have been unaware of it. Waterhouse showed his major version at the Royal Academy in 1906. According to Liz Prettejohn the revival of interest in this classical myth may have been prompted by the publication in 1903 of Jane Ellen Harrison's book Protegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (164). John Reinhard Wegulin had exhibited his The Labour of the Danaides at the Royal Academy as early as 1878.
Bibliography
19th Century Paintings. Zurich: Koller International Auctions (March 27, 2009), lot 3315. https://www.kollerauktionen.ch/de/90956-0002------1148-STOREY_-GEORGE-_1834-London-1-1148_120654.html?RecPos=64
"The Antiquary Among the Pictures." The Antiquary XXXVI (May 1900): 179-83.
Harrison, Jane Ellen. Protegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903, 614-24.
Margaux, Adrian. "The Art of Mr. G. A. Storey, A.R. A." The Windsor Magazine XXII (1905): 613-27.
Prettejohn, Elizabeth. J. W. Waterhouse. The Modern Pre-Raphaelite. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2008, cat 47, 164-65.
"The Royal Academy of 1900." The Art Journal New Series XXXIX (1900): 161-83.
Created 24 September 2023