Perseus and Andromeda

François Lemoyne shows the moment when Perseus, back from defeating the Gorgon Medusa, reaches Andromeda, chained naked to a rock on the Ethiopian shore. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, her predicament follows from her mother Cassiopeia's boast that her daughter outshone the Nereids, a slight that angered Poseidon. The sea monster, cropped at the lower left, seems to threaten to spill out of the frame, while Perseus hangs in the air, about to bring his sword down on it. The composition plays verticals against curves: the elongated canvas echoes Andromeda's outstretched arm, and the feet of the two main figures frame the creature. A chain of glances, Andromeda looking at Perseus, Perseus at the monster, and the monster back at Perseus, adds tension. Lemoyne drew on Venetian painting and, above all, on Titian's treatment of the same subject, whose composition he reversed.

Painter

François Lemoyne

Date

1726

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

184 × 151 cm

Museum

Wallace Collection, London

Genre

mythological painting

Depicts

Perseus

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