Perseus and Andromeda

Joachim Wtewael signed this on the rock beside Andromeda's chain with the year 1611, and packed three kinds of picture into one canvas. There is a classical nude in the manner of Hendrick Goltzius, the Haarlem painter and engraver. Behind her opens a harbour town and a wide sea in the tradition of Bruegel's landscapes. At her feet lies a still life of shells, bones and a skull, which the Louvre reads as signs of rebirth and a reminder of death, and of the fate waiting for the girl. Perseus swoops down on the winged horse Pegasus, although in Ovid he flies on winged sandals, a mix-up already found in Boccaccio in the 14th century. The canvas probably stayed with the painter's descendants in Utrecht, where an Andromeda by Joachim was listed in his granddaughter's house in 1669.