Perseus with the head of Medusa

item details

NamePerseus with the head of Medusa

ProductionCherubino Alberti; engraver; 1570-1615
Polidoro da Caravaggio; artist

Classificationworks on paper, engravings

Materialsink, paper

Techniquesengraving

Dimensionsplate: 236mm (width), 154mm (height)

Registration Number1910-0001-1/46-80

Credit linePurchased 1910

Overview

Mimicking a carved bas relief, this engraving depicts a scene from the story of Perseus by the prominent Rome-based printmaker Cherubino Alberti (1552-1615), after drawings by Polidoro da Caravaggio (1499-c. 1543). Here Perseus holds aloft the head of the recently slain Medusa (or Gorgon), to turn his pursuers into stone. It is one of three prints in the collection by Cherubino/Polidoro that illustrate the story. The others are Perseus changing Atlas into a mountain with the head of Medusa (1910-0001-1/47-80) and the Nymphs in the Gardenthe Hesperides picking the golden apples (1910-0001/48-80).

Polidoro was a pupil of Raphael, and is not to be confused with the better known and later Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. This engraving is in the so-called King George IV album of Old Master prints, acquired by the Dominion Museum, forerunner of Te Papa, in 1910.

Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art March 2017