Perseus and Andromeda (after Reni)
Jeremiah Davison (c.1695 - 1745)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1723 - 1745
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
2790 x 2200 x 75 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Stourhead, Wiltshire
NT 732314
Caption
Perseus arrives just in time on his winged white horse, Pegasus, to rescue Andromeda, daughter of an Ethopian king, from a sea monster that looms behind the rock she is chained to with its jaws open. The artist copied from a copy, once in the Royal Collection and now in the National Gallery, London, which was itself after the original painting by Guido Reni, 1635-6, in Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini, Rome. The mytholgical story is told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Perseus and Andromeda by Jeremiah Davison (Scotland c.1695 – London 1745). Andromeda is seen chained to a rock being sacrificed to a sea monster sent by Poseidon/Neptune.The monster is seen looming behind the rock with its jaws open. Perseus, her rescuer, arrives on his winged white horse, Pegasus, in the sky on the upper left. The scene depicted is an episode from the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses IV, 783-960. This painting, like the copy in the National Gallery, London (in the Royal Collection between 1723 - 1836), is after the original painting by Guido Reni, of 1635-6, in Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini, Rome.
Provenance
Acquired by Henry II Hoare (1705-85) and thence by descent; given to the National Trust along with the house, its grounds, and the rest of contents by Sir Henry Hugh Arthur Hoare, 6th Bt (1865 – 1947) in 1946.
Credit line
Stourhead, The Hoare Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Jeremiah Davison (c.1695 - 1745), copyist after Guido Reni (Bologna 1575 – Bologna 1642), artist
References
Walpole 1927-28 Paget Toynbee (ed.), 'Horace Walpole's Journals of Visits to Country Seats, etc.', 1760-62, Walpole Society XVI, 1927 -28 pp. 9-80, p.42