Perseus on Pegasus Slaying Medusa

In the Library of Apollodorus, an ancient Greek handbook of myths, it is Athena who sees Perseus through. She guides his hand as he looks at Medusa's reflection in a bronze shield, since one direct look at the Gorgon turned a man to stone, and when the deed is done he gives the head to her, and she sets it in the middle of her own shield. Sargent painted that handover. Perseus, in a winged cap and winged sandals, sits astride the rearing white horse with a sword at his side and holds out the head by its snakes. Athena, helmeted and in a long yellow robe, comes down from the right and reaches for it. Medusa's severed face is calm and pale, a young woman's face. Her body lies under the hooves, winged and scaled, with red streams pouring from the neck. Sargent worked on the canvas between 1922 and 1925 for the ceiling of the museum's main staircase, and it was put up there in 1925.