This is a study for the figure of Andromeda in the projected composition The Court of Phineus, which was intended to carry forward the legend of Perseus and Andromeda, as explored in 'The Perseus Series'. The composition was not part of the scheme devised for Arthur James Balfour, and was abandoned at an early stage, but is known from a compositional study in a sketchbook now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (reproduced as illustration 120 in Kurt Löcher, Der Perseus-Zyclus von Edward Burne-Jones, Staatsgallerie, Stuttgart, 1973), and from an oil sketch showing the figures of the attendants of King Polydectes at the moment when turned to stone by the sight of the Medusa's head (private collection). Andromeda is shown in the drawing turning her head and shielding her eyes so as to prevent herself from seeing the Medusa, which Perseus brandishes in his left hand.
Provenance Property of a Charitable Trust