Perseus freeing Andromeda

Fetti painted Perseus Freeing Andromeda around 1621, one of his relatively rare excursions into classical mythology. The story from Ovid's Metamorphoses — Perseus rescuing the princess Andromeda from a sea monster, having used the Gorgon Medusa's severed head to petrify his opponent — combined heroic action, erotic display, and fantastical narrative in a mix irresistible to Baroque patrons. Fetti's Mantuan context was important: the Gonzaga collections included major Titian mythologies and Rubens's recent canvases, setting high standards for the treatment of Ovidian subjects. The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna preserves this painting alongside other Gonzaga-provenance works, many acquired when the collection was partially dispersed in the 1620s.

Painted on poplar panel, the support gives a smooth ground well-suited to the precise rendering of landscape and water in the background. Fetti orchestrates a complex multi-figure composition with practiced ease, the diagonal of Perseus's movement creating compositional energy. Flesh tones in the figure of Andromeda are rendered with particular care and luminosity.