Alexandre Jacovleff

Catalogue entry

Alexandre Jacovleff 1887-1938

N04992 Neptune and Andromeda (?) c.1937-8

Stamped with a seal b.l. and b.r.
Tempera on canvas (irregular), approximately 20 1/2 x 29 3/4 (52 x 75.5)
Presented anonymously 1939
Prov: Purchased by the donor from Mme A. Jacovleff, the artist's mother, 1939

Acquired under the title 'Allegory'. On the left is Neptune, with his trident, and on the right a naked girl seated on a rock amid a raging sea; she raises one arm in an attitude of distress.

It has been suggested that she is Andromeda, daughter of the Aethiopian King Cepheus and Cassiope. Neptune inundated her father's kingdom and sent a sea-monster to ravage the country because Cassiope had boasted of being fairer than the Nereides. After the oracle had been consulted, Andromeda was tied naked on a rock and exposed to the sea-monster; she was rescued by Perseus, who slew the monster by showing him Medusa's head and obtained her as his wife.

There are possible indications of the sea-monster on the right.

See also the note on N04990.

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.373, reproduced p.373

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