Andromeda chained to the Rock by the Nereids

Chassériau painted Andromeda Chained to the Rock by the Nereids in 1840, reimagining the Perseus myth with a focus on feminine beauty and peril at the very beginning of his mature career. At age 21, Chassériau was already moving decisively beyond Ingres's influence, developing a more sensuous, colorful approach that would define his mature style and anticipate the Symbolist painting of Gustave Moreau, who studied his work closely. The subject of the chained Andromeda — exposed and vulnerable, awaiting a monster — permitted the display of the female nude within a classical framework that gave the eroticism legitimacy. Chassériau's oil technique combined Ingres's sculptural clarity of contour with Delacroix's warm Venetian colorism in a synthesis uniquely his own, one that later critics have seen as the bridge between classical and Symbolist painting in France. The painting is now held at the Department of Paintings of the Louvre, where it can be studied alongside both the Ingres tradition Chassériau inherited and the Delacroix tradition he absorbed.

Chassériau renders the chained nude with luminous flesh tones that combine Ingres's smooth modeling with a warmer, more sensuous palette. The sea nymphs and the dramatic coastal setting add Romantic atmosphere to the classical subject.