Andromeda and Perseus

Andromeda and Perseus at Manchester Art Gallery, painted around 1840, depicts the mythological rescue of the Ethiopian princess chained to a coastal rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster — one of the great subjects in European figure painting, treated by Titian in his poesie and by countless others. For Etty, the subject offered the combination of the female nude (Andromeda), the male figure in heroic action (Perseus), and the dramatic landscape context that constituted his most fully realized ambitions as a painter. By 1840 Etty was in his mid-fifties, at the height of his powers as a colorist even as his physical health was beginning to decline, and the Andromeda subject draws on his deepest Venetian influences — Titian's poesie for Philip II of Spain, which he had studied at first hand in Spain and in Italian collections, provided the model. Manchester Art Gallery holds this alongside other works of the Victorian period, contextualizing Etty's mythological figure painting within the broader British Romantic tradition.

The chained Andromeda and the heroic Perseus create a dramatic rescue composition. Etty's warm flesh tones and energetic handling demonstrate his command of the mythological nude.