The drawing illustrates an episode from the seventh book of Les aventures de Télémaque, fils d'Ulysse by François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon, a text much loved by neoclassical figurative culture, whose episodes were often depicted in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Sangiorgi's drawing shows Venus, Telemachus seated with staff in hand, crowned by Venus herself, and Cupid playing on her lap. Venus, intending to take revenge for the contempt shown by Mentor and Telemachus for her worship in Cyprus, takes Cupid to the island of Ogygia and delivers him to Calypso, intending to wound the insensitive hearts of Mentor and Telemachus. However, Cupid, as a mischievous child, causes Calypso herself to be overwhelmed by love for Telemachus, while he falls in love with the nymph Eucharis.
