The Cave of the Storm Nymphs, Edward Poynter (c. 1902)

The Cave of the Storm Nymphs, Edward Poynter (1902) Edward Poynter’s The Cave of the Storm Nymphs plunges us into the perilous beauty of myth, where allure and destruction entwine. Three sirens, radiant and unearthly, gather in their rocky grotto as a ship founders in the storm outside. One strums a golden tortoise-shell lyre, while her companions exult, anticipating the treasures and victims the sea will soon deliver. Painted with Poynter’s characteristic academic precision and jewel-toned palette, the work is both sensuous and ominous—a hymn to beauty’s power to beguile and undo. Poynter painted two versions of the scene, in 1902 and 1903, the first now in Norfolk’s Hermitage Museum and the second in the private collection of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. Together they embody the Edwardian fascination with mythological subjects, filtered through the rigor of academic training and the rich theatricality of fin-de-siècle art. The Cave of the Storm Nymphs is not just a myth retold, but a vis