(Pieve di Cadore 1485/88–1576 Venice)
Perseus and Andromeda,
oil on canvas, 180 x 204 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection Dott. Giovanni Moretta, 1883;
and by descent;
European Private Collection

The present painting relates to the painting commissioned from Titian by Philip II of Spain, conserved in the Wallace Collection in London.

The compostion of Perseus and Andromeda was probably painted in 1554-6 and is perhaps the most dramatic of all Titian’s Poesie, a series of six large-scale mythological paintings commissioned from Titian by Philip II, that were each to represent a scene from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Andromeda is chained to a rock as a sacrifice to appease the sea monster sent by Neptune to punish her mother for claiming that she and her daughter were more beautiful than the Nereids. The hero Perseus swoops down to rescue her in a powerful vertiginous descent. Andromeda is shown in the nude, passive and vulnerable, her nakedness forming a strong visual antithesis to the armoured body of Perseus.

Provenance:
Collection Dott. Giovanni Moretta, 1883;
and by descent;
European Private Collection
The present painting relates to the painting commissioned from Titian by Philip II of Spain, conserved in the Wallace Collection in Lon