John Melhuish Strudwick22

Circë and Scylla, Oil on canvas. George Holt discovered Strudwick’s work in the collection of rival Liverpool shipowner William Imrie at the Holmstead, North Mossley Hill Road. In 1890 he decided he wanted his own painting by the artist and purchased this subject, taken from Greek mythology as retold by the Roman author Ovid. The enchantress Circe, jealous of the maid Scylla with whom her favourite Glaucus has fallen in love, poisons the water in which Scylla is about to bathe, turning her into a sea monster. Following his acquisition of this work, in what was his most individualistic act of art patronage, Holt went on to commission three more paintings directly from Strudwick.