Supporting museums Art we've helped buy Perseus and the Graiae
Perseus and the Graiae Perseus and the Graiae

© National Museum Cardiff


Perseus and the Graiae

Sir Edward Burne-Jones

Art Funded
2008
Dimensions
152.4 x 168.7 cm
Vendor
Trustees of the 1st Earl of Balfour's Trust (through Christie's)
Burne-Jones's retelling of the Perseus legend concentrated on its most familiar episodes.

Perseus is visiting the Graiae, three sisters of the gorgon, to force them to help him find and kill Medusa. This relief is a key element in the artist's uncompleted 'Perseus' cycle. The other oils, unfinished canvases and cartoons from the series are in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart.

Provenance

Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (1848-1930); by descent to the Trustees of the 1st Earl of Balfour's Trust.

Oil, bronze & silver leaf on carved gesso on an oak panel overpainted in gold

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Nineteen of Nicolas Poussin's paintings take Moses as their subject. The Finding of Moses from 1651 is distinguished not only by the animated detail of the foreground scene, but also by the accuracy of the archaeological background.

A late still life, Picasso's Nature Morte aux Poron reworks the classic genre as an exercise in Cubist angularity. While the palette reflects the artist's post-war shift away from darker colours in favour of brighter, lighter shades, the objects themselves are long-established symbols in the artist's artistic vocabulary.

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Exhibitions at National Museum Cardiff

William Dyce, Welsh Landscape with Two Women Knitting (1860) Oil on board

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