Scuola romana

"Perseus and Andromeda" Roman School Late 16th century / early 17th century Oil on canvas Dimensions 112 x 146 Without frame Excellent condition Andromeda, the young and beautiful daughter of the Ethiopian rulers Cepheus and Cassiopeia, was chained to a rock and offered as food to a terrible sea monster to appease the wrath of Neptune, who was offended by the arrogance of Cassiopeia who had proclaimed herself the most beautiful of the Nereids. According to another version of the myth, Cassiopeia had instead claimed that her daughter Andromeda could boast of this coveted record. In any case, Andromeda was saved by the heroic intervention of Perseus, already the protagonist of the decapitation of the Gorgon Medusa, who, in front of the dramatic scene, did not hesitate to help the splendid victim of the cruel sacrifice. He, riding his winged horse Pegasus, kills the monster and after freeing her and taking her to safety from her parents, asks for the hand of the beautiful Princess to make her his bride. Iconographically, the myth of Andromeda was widely successful in Roman Baroque painting of the late 16th and early 17th centuries and was commissioned, often in large dimensions, to furnish the halls of the sumptuous palaces of the Urbe. The scene depicting the body of a young and beautiful woman completely naked offered as food to the sea monster but also to the eyes of the spectators, constituted for those times an evident morbid attraction, with poorly concealed pornographic purposes. Our canvas, in particular, seems to completely disregard the episodic context to offer an image of the protagonist in a pose with a high erotic charge. The author in fact exposes the splendid figure of Andromeda in the foreground with great realistic effect, leaving very little to the imagination, while the monster and the heroic Perseus riding Pegasus are barely hinted at and described with a few vigorous brushstrokes. It is interesting to note that despite her Ethiopian origins, Andromeda is always immortalized with white skin, precisely to satisfy the socio-cultural ideologies and aesthetic preferences of the clients. We emphasize the rarity of the painting which should be considered as an example of the privileges granted to the high Aristocracy in contrast to the severe moralistic canons imposed by the Church on the vulgar populace. Given the important dimensions of the work and the excellent result on the wall, we offer it without a frame. However, it is possible, at the customer's discretion, to complete it with a thin gilded frame. All the photographic details of the work on the link: https://www.antichitaischia.it/it/prodotto/andromeda