Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm

The piece was inspired by a metaphor in Thomas Gray's poem The Bard in which the apparently bright start to the notorious misrule of Richard II of England was compared to a gilded ship whose occupants are unaware of an approaching storm.

Etty chose to illustrate Gray's lines literally, depicting a golden boat filled with and surrounded by nude and near-nude figures.

[3] On completing his seven-year apprenticeship at the age of 18 he moved to London "with a few pieces of chalk crayons",[4] and the intention of becoming a history painter in the tradition of the Old Masters.

[7][8] Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, While proudly riding o'er the azure realm, In gallant trim, the gilded vessel goes, Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm, Unmindful of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey.

[14] Etty used a passage Gray intended to symbolise the seemingly bright start to the disastrous reign of Edward's great-great-grandson Richard II.

Another nude representing Pleasure lies on a large bouquet of flowers, loosely holding the helm of the boat and allowing Zephyr's breeze to guide it.

[10] Etty said of his approach to the text that he was hoping to create "a general allegory of Human Life, its empty vain pleasures—if not founded on the laws of Him who is the Rock of Ages.

[26] Although it received little notice when first exhibited, the 1822 version provoked a strong reaction from The Times: We take this opportunity of advising Mr. Etty, who got some reputation for painting "Cleopatra's Galley", not to be seduced into a style which can gratify only the most vicious taste.

[14] The Library of the Fine Arts felt "in classical design, anatomical drawing, elegance of attitude, fineness of form, and gracefulness of grouping, no doubt Mr. Etty has no superior", and while "the representation of the ideas in the lines quoted [from The Bard] are beautifully and accurately expressed upon the canvas" they considered "the ulterior reference of the poet [to the destruction of Welsh culture and the decline of the House of Plantagenet] was entirely lost sight of, and that, if this be the nearest that Art can approach in conveying to the eye the happy exemplification of the subject which Gray intended, we fear we must give up the contest upon the merits of poetry and painting.

"[14] Other reviewers were kinder; The Gentleman's Magazine praised Etty's ability to capture "the beauty of the proportion of the antique", noting that in the central figures "there is far more of classicality than is to be seen in almost any modern picture", and considered the overall composition "a most fortunate combination of the ideality of Poetry and the reality of Nature".

[32] It complained "no decent family can hang such sights against their wall",[33] and condemned the painting as an "indulgence of what we once hoped a classical, but which are now convinced, is a lascivious mind", commenting "the course of [Etty's] studies should run in a purer channel, and that he should not persist, with an unhallowed fancy, to pursue Nature to her holy recesses.

[37] Needled by repeated attacks from the press on his supposed indecency, poor taste and lack of creativity, Etty changed his approach after the response to Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm.

[38] He exhibited over 80 further paintings at the Royal Academy alone, and remained a prominent painter of nudes, but from this time made conscious efforts to reflect moral lessons.

[39] He died in November 1849 and, while his work enjoyed a brief boom in popularity, interest in him declined over time, and by the end of the 19th century all of his paintings had fallen below their original prices.