3-095-869 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London; photographer: Prudence Cuming"/Heritage Images

Sketch model of Perseus and Pegasus for the painting 'Perseus and Andromeda', c1890. Plaster study for the figures of Perseus and Pegasus in Leighton's 1891 painting 'Perseus and Andromeda' (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). In the painting, Leighton depicted the vital moment when Perseus saved the princess. In Greek legend, Queen Cassiopeia angered the sea god Poseidon by claiming that she (or in some versions her daughter Andromeda) was more beautiful than the Nereids. As punishment Poseidon sent a sea monster to attack her land. The only way that the attack could be averted was by chaining Andromeda to a rock in the sea as a sacrifice. Perseus saw the abandoned Andromeda as he travelled by on his winged horse and came to her rescue by slaying the monster.