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Polidoro da Caravaggio; artist
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