Perseus Rescuing Andromeda, 1594–95
Price range: $295.00 through $540.00
Perseus swoops out of the sky on Pegasus, sword raised, as a sea monster rears from the waves towards Andromeda, chained to the rock. Cavaliere d’Arpino painted the whole rescue in 1594–95 on a wooden panel barely half a metre tall, the kind of small, glowing mythology Rome’s connoisseurs couldn’t get enough of.
Arpino was Rome’s painter of the moment, later knighted by the Pope, and he made pictures like this for collectors who wanted high drama they could hold in their hands. Brought up to wall size, the rescue plays out at a glance, sea, sky and rock in one sweep, with the monster forever a moment too late.
The print
Printed by theprintspace, the East London fine-art lab trusted by artists, galleries and museums. Each print is made to order on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, a heavyweight 308gsm paper made from 100% cotton, with a soft matte surface and a natural white tone, using archival pigment inks made to last for generations.
Photo Rag’s smooth cotton adds no texture of its own, so the polished, jewel-like finish of Arpino’s panel painting comes through exactly as he left it.
Sizes available:
42×59cm, 17×23″, fine art print, open edition
59×84cm, 23×33″, fine art print, open edition
70×100cm, 28×39″, fine art print, open edition
Safe, tracked delivery guaranteed worldwide, with sustainable packaging.
The story
Giuseppe Cesari was born in Rome on 14 February 1568. His family came from the town of Arpino, and when Pope Clement VIII made him a Knight of the Order of Christ he became the Cavaliere d’Arpino. By the 1590s he was among the most fashionable painters in Rome, and for a while a young Caravaggio worked in his studio.
Perseus and Andromeda was a subject he returned to again and again. Versions survive painted on slate and even on lapis lazuli, in Providence, St. Louis, Berlin and Vienna. It follows the telling of the myth popular in sixteenth-century Italy, in which Perseus, on his way home from slaying Medusa, arrives riding Pegasus, the winged horse born from her blood.
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