Persée et Andromède

By 1891 Frederic Leighton was president of the Royal Academy and about as established as a British painter could be, and he reached for a subject as old as Greek myth: Andromeda chained to a rock as a sea-monster comes for her. Yet he treats it almost like a Gothic nightmare. The dragon's dark wings fold right around the girl and swallow the lower half of the picture, while Perseus is a small burst of light high above, on his winged horse, loosing an arrow. Andromeda's pale body twists against those hard black scales. Dorothy Dene, Leighton's favourite model, posed for her, and he first worked the pose out on a small plaster figure draped in wet cloth.