In 1826 Edward Calvert met Samuel Palmer and became a member of the Blake circle in London. Under William Blake’s influence he produced a number of small-scale, minutely detailed and imaginative engravings, drawings and watercolours. In 1844 he travelled to Greece, and from this period date a number of oil paintings of arcadian subjects, including the two examples displayed here. In ancient Greek literature, the ferryman Charon sailed souls from the land of the living across the River Styx to the domain of the dead.