Perseus Beheading Medusa

mythological

After studying in Vicenza under Maganza, a late Mannerist painter of limited importance, Francesco Maffei turned to the paintings of Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese and Jacopo Bassano and soon achieved a personal style based on a Baroque reworking of the lessons taught by the great artists of the sixteenth century. Maffei moved to Venice in 1638, was attracted by the painters Liss, Fetti and Strozzi and developed his own version of their free and fanciful modern painting with a gifted, exuberant dreamlike quality. Amongst the most significant examples of this period is the painting of Perseus cutting the head off the Medusa.

Loading map…

About the Artist

Francesco Maffei

1600 – 1660

Italian painter, active mainly in the Veneto. He had a refreshingly individualistic style, carrying on the great painterly tradition of Tintoretto and Bassano, reinforced by the example of Liss, Feti, and Strozzi, to which he added his own note of mysterious and sometimes bizarre fantasy. He painted mythological scenes and also allegorical portraits of local officials.

View all works →