Perseus and Andromeda, study for The Doom Fulfilled

Sir Edward Burne-Jones · 1875

Medium

Gouache with gold paint on board

Original size

33 × 30.3 cm (13 × 11 15/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Realism

This intimate study glows with the otherworldly quality Burne-Jones brought to ancient myth — Andromeda's pale form against the dark sea monster rendered in a palette that feels both tender and foreboding. Burne-Jones was the great master of the British Aesthetic Movement, and this preparatory work for his monumental Perseus cycle reveals his process at its most concentrated. The combination of gouache and gold paint on board draws on his lifelong devotion to medieval manuscript illumination and Byzantine mosaic, giving the figures a luminous, almost sacred presence. Where his contemporaries sought naturalism, Burne-Jones pursued a dreamlike stillness — every gesture deliberate, every line musical. The full Perseus series was commissioned by Arthur Balfour, later British Prime Minister, and Burne-Jones spent the better part of two decades refining it; this 1875 study shows the composition taking shape years before the finished canvases were complete. Our hand-painted oil reproduction on canvas faithfully translates the compositional drama and tonal subtlety of the original, capturing the weight of Burne-Jones's draughtsmanship and the interplay of cool flesh tones against his characteristically rich, muted backgrounds.