Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Deidamia.
The gallery
Bowl with the Portrait of Deidamia
Nicolò da Urbino, c. 1525
This Italian Renaissance maiolica bowl, painted in the workshop tradition of Nicolò da Urbino around 1525, names its subject outright: Deidamia, daughter of King Lycomedes of Scyros and, in this caption's reckoning, the bride of Achilles. Such inscribed istoriato dishes turned the heroines of antiquity into prized tableware for humanist patrons, here giving rare honor to a figure usually glimpsed only at the edge of Achilles' story. The piece is held in the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin (inv. 17,39), and remains one of the very few works to depict Deidamia alone and identified by name rather than as one anonymous maiden among many.
Achilles on Skyros
Nicolas Poussin, 1656
Nicolas Poussin's late Baroque canvas of 1656 stages the moment Odysseus, disguised as a merchant, exposes Achilles hidden among the daughters of Lycomedes on Scyros: as the hero seizes a sword from the peddler's wares, his disguise falls away. Deidamia, the king's daughter who has secretly borne Achilles a son, stands among the startled women, her closeness to the unmasked hero marking her apart from her sisters. Painted with Poussin's measured classical gravity, the work hangs in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond (acc. 57.2), and renders the episode that binds Deidamia forever to the father of Neoptolemus.
Achilles Discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes
Gérard de Lairesse, c. 1685
In this grand classicizing composition of about 1685, the Dutch painter Gérard de Lairesse dramatizes the discovery of Achilles at the court of Lycomedes. Amid a throng of richly dressed maidens examining a merchant's gifts, Achilles reaches instinctively for arms, betraying himself; the women recoil in alarm. Among them is Deidamia, the daughter of Lycomedes whose union with the disguised Achilles produced Neoptolemus, here woven into the cluster of figures whose lives the unmasking will upturn. The painting is in the Mauritshuis, The Hague (inv. 82).
The Discovery of Achilles among the Daughters of Lycomedes
Jan de Bray, 1664
Jan de Bray's oil of 1664, drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses, captures the pivotal scene on Scyros: Odysseus and his companions watch as Achilles, raised in girlish disguise among Lycomedes' daughters, snatches up a weapon and reveals himself. The painter gathers the women in animated reaction, and within their company is Deidamia, the princess who had become the secret companion of the hidden hero and the mother of his child. Measuring 129 by 179 cm, the work is preserved in the National Museum in Warsaw (inv. M.Ob.530).