Sir Edward PoynterAndromeda 1869

This is Andromeda the daughter of an Ethiopian king, from the ancient Greek story by Ovid. She is chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea-monster. The hero Perseus sees her, falls instantly in love and rescues her.It was one of the most popular pretexts in the Victorian era for painting the female nude. The familiarity of the myth gave artists licence to play down the narrative to concentrate on the female figure without being accused of impropriety. Edward Poynter painted this figure again, in a much larger version, exhibited at the Royal Academy to great acclaim.