Art Institute of Chicago

Perseus Starting from the Cave of the Gorgons

Attributed to Henry FuseliLinkedCulture matchlcp-1773ddbfb7d2

Date: c. 1816
Medium: Oil and oil wash, over graphite and with touches of pen and black ink, on tan laid paper, laid down on off-white Japanese paper
Culture: Switzerland
Department: Prints and Drawings
Institution: Art Institute of Chicago
Object ID: 61546

From the Art Institute of Chicago record

Fuseli’s unfinished painting depicts the ancient Greek hero Perseus, son of Zeus, a demigod who slew Medusa, the snake-haired Gorgon whose glance turned men to stone. On the ground lies the decapitated body of Medusa, above which the airborne Perseus flees with her head, which retained its deadly power. Medusa’s two sisters, at right, unsuccessfully attempt to stop Perseus. The painting’s source was the ancient Greek poet Hesiod’s the Shield of Heracles (translated into English in 1815), an imagined description in verse of the scenes found on Heracles’s beautifully crafted shield, including Perseus slaying Medusa.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection
Provenance: Sold, Puttick and Simpson, London, October 23, 1914, lot 235 or 236 to William F. E. Gurley (1870-1943), Chicago [collector records]; given to the Art Institute, Feb. 1944.