Artist: Jean-Baptiste Regnault (1754–1829)
School: French
Title: Wedding of Perseus and Andromeda
Place: France
Date: 1782
Material: Canvas
Technique: Oil
Collection: The State Hermitage Museum
Provenance: A.K. Rudanovsky Collection
Wedding of Perseus and Andromeda
Painted in 1782 by the French artist Jean-Baptiste Regnault, Wedding of Perseus and Andromeda draws upon one of the most enduring stories of classical mythology.
Regnault was a prominent French painter of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, particularly associated with history painting and the emerging Neoclassical tradition. Mythological and historical subjects occupied an important place in his work, allowing the artist to combine dramatic narrative with the idealised forms characteristic of academic painting.
Perseus and Andromeda
The painting takes its subject from the ancient Greek story of Perseus and Andromeda.
According to the myth, Andromeda was the daughter of King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia. After Cassiopeia offended the sea gods through her boastfulness, Andromeda was condemned to be sacrificed to a sea monster and was chained to a rock by the shore.
Perseus encountered Andromeda after defeating the Gorgon Medusa. He rescued her from the monster and subsequently claimed her as his bride.
Rather than concentrating on the moment of danger and rescue, Regnault chose the marriage of the two figures as his subject. The story is therefore presented not simply as an heroic confrontation, but through its resolution: the union of Perseus and Andromeda.
Jean-Baptiste Regnault
Jean-Baptiste Regnault was born in 1754 and became one of the notable French painters of his generation.
His artistic career developed within the academic tradition of eighteenth-century France. He studied under established painters and received the Prix de Rome, an important distinction that enabled young French artists to continue their training in Italy.
Regnault became particularly known for large historical, allegorical and mythological compositions. Classical antiquity provided him with subjects through which ideas of heroism, virtue, tragedy and beauty could be explored on a monumental scale.
He later taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and remained active until his death in 1829.
The Rudanovsky Collection
Wedding of Perseus and Andromeda is associated in the historical Rudanovsky records with the A.K. Rudanovsky collection.
The painting subsequently became part of the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, where works originating from the Rudanovsky collection form part of the broader history of European art preserved by the museum.
The work is particularly relevant to the Rudanovsky collection because it belongs to a wider group of paintings by Jean-Baptiste Regnault associated with the family’s collecting history.
Another work by the artist, Andromeda’s Return, is also documented in the Rudanovsky archive and will be presented separately within this collection.
Today, Wedding of Perseus and Andromeda remains part of the State Hermitage Museum collection and represents both eighteenth-century French mythological painting and the history of the Rudanovsky collection.
