I never noticed it, but if you look carefully at the painting from the scan, you will see a circular pattern of lines that looks like someone vandalized the painting. When I asked, one of the guides at the gallery told me that it's a part of the painting. Waterhouse added this and several other elements to show the loose threads from the looms.

The Harris Museum and Art Gallery was a short walk from the train station in the center of town. Psyche located on the 3rd floor of the gallery (if I remember correctly). As much as I want to tell you something more exciting, I simply saw the painting and left the gallery about half an hour later. Since I was by myself, I could only take a picture of the painting by itself. Here it is...

I arrived in Oldham at around 3pm when the morning turned to light snow. As anxious as I was, I stopped at a local bar for lunch. The friendly locals helped me with the exact location of Oldham Art Gallery. All in all, the gallery is about a 15 minutes walk from the train station.

Upon arrival, I casually browsed the gallery, but got more and more anxious as what I was looking for was nowhere to be found. I began to wonder whether or not I was in the right gallery. I decided to ask the two security guards sitting at the desk. They told me that Circe IS here, but has not been on display since August because the museum is having a modern art exhibition. Figure that! Talk about bad luck! I introduced myself and began to tell the guards my story, emphasized on the fact that I traveled "all the way from America" to see this painting. The next thing I knew, one of the guards reached into the desk drawer and fumbled around looking for something. Guess what happened next? He pulled out a set of key and asked me to follow him. We walked through several hallways and then downstairs into the basement of the gallery. This is not happening, I thought to myself. There they were, the rest of the paintings from the gallery. There must have been over a hundred of these neatly hung on racks after racks after racks. Alan Brown, the guard,and I started pulling out and putting back masterpieces after masterpieces. The meer fact of going through famous paintings that haven't been seen by anyone for 3 months was mind-blowing. Ten minutes later, Alan exclaimed "here it is!"

And there it was....HUGE!!! All of the sudden, Circe became one of my favorites. The low basement ceiling couldn't accomodate the 1.49m in height painting plus another 20cm or so of frame. For 3 months, no one in the world saw this beauty from Waterhouse and no one will have seen it for at least another 3 months and there I was... To say the least, I was completely in awe...beauty, size, and experience. I took a picture of Alan Brown with Circe and then he took one of me with her. Until this day, I still cherish this experience and will do so for the rest of my life.