Perseus Freeing Andromeda

The last thing Philip IV ordered from Rubens was a set of four canvases for a new hall in the Alcázar, the royal palace in Madrid. The letters of the king's brother Ferdinand, who governed Flanders and handled the commission, let us follow how the work went. Rubens died in 1640 with none of the four finished. The most advanced one was passed to Jacob Jordaens in Antwerp to complete, and it is the only one of the four that has come down to us. The scene is the quiet minute after the fight. Perseus unfastens Andromeda's chains, the shield with Medusa's head lies at her feet, and the dead sea monster and the horse Pegasus are small in the distance. Above the pair Cupid hovers with Hymenaeus, the god of weddings, holding the torch lit for a marriage. When the Alcázar burned on Christmas Eve 1734, the canvas was carried out and appears on the list of pictures taken to the house where the Marqués de Bedmar had lived.