Perseus changing Atlas into a mountain with the head of Medusa

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). The helmeted hero is changing Atlas into a mountain with the head of the slain Medusa. It is the left half of the engraving mounted next to it in the so-called King George IV album of Old Master prints, Nymphs in the Garden of the Hesperides picking the golden apples (1910-0001/48-80), acquired by the Dominion Museum in 1910.

Polidoro was a pupil of Raphael, and is not to be confused with the better known and later Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art           March 2017