Painting by Italian painter Sebastian Ricci “Perseus draws Phineus to stone with the help of the head of Medusa the Gorgon.” The size of the painting is 194 x 240 cm, oil on canvas. As a genealogical legend, the Perseus myth has the following content. Acrizius, the son of the king of Argos, Abant, without a heir, turned to the Delphic oracle to learn about the fate of his closest descendants. The oracle replied to the king that his daughter, Danae, would have a son who would kill his grandfather and reign in his place.
Acrizius concluded his daughter in the underground terem, but the all-seeing Zeus fell in love with beautiful Danae and penetrated to her through the cracks of the roof in the form of a golden rain. Danae bore the son of Perseus from the god of light and lightning. Upon learning of this, Acrizius ordered Danae and his son to be put in a drawer and lowered into the sea. The box was brought to the island of Serif, the king of which Polidekt was kindled with a passion for Danae and decided to take it, getting rid of Perseus.
He offered the latter to get the head of Medusa Gorgon, being sure that Perseus would die in the performance of such an impossible enterprise. Led by Athena and Hermes, Perseus went first to the goddesses Gray, who knew everything hidden in nature, and robbed them of their unique, common to all of them eyes and the same tooth, promised to give what was taken away only if they showed him the way to the Gorgons and will give winged sandals, bag and helmet Aida.
After receiving all this, Perseus went to the Gorgons, cut off the head of Medusa, put it in a bag and quickly flew away with the help of winged sandals from the angry sisters of the decapitated Gorgon. Having defeated the goddesses of darkness, the god of light flew to Serif, but, flying over the king’s country of Kefay, Perseus saw Andromeda chained to the rock and doomed to sacrifice to the sea monster.
With the help of Medusa’s head, Perseus turned the monster into stone and freed Andromeda, whom he had previously asked her father to marry. When the marriage feast took place, Unro Andromeda’s uncle, Finay, to whom she had previously been promised to be his wife, attacked Perseus, but against the attackers, the head of Medusa turned Finea and his warriors to stone.
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