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PAG2-burnejones-call-jpg

This reproduction of Burne-Jones’s painting, “The Call of Perseus,” is from a series of ten originally commissioned in 1875 by Sir Arthur Balfour for his music room. The image, in portrait orientation, shows the goddess Athena revealing herself to Perseus and presenting him with a mirror and sword. Athena dominates the central foreground of the image. She stands in three-quarter profile, wearing a breastplate and helmet, with her long robes tied around her waist and falling to her feet. Her left hand is stretched out over Perseus’s head, holding the mirror. Her right hand holds a sword, pointed down towards the ground. Perseus stands at the extreme right of the image, also in three-quarter profile, facing toward Athena. He is nude with his right hand holding his forehead and his left hand gripping the rock behind him. Athena and Perseus meet each other’s gaze. Behind these figures, in the left middle ground, another scene from the Perseus and Athena is depicted. These two figures are pictured in profile; both are bent, looking downward to the right. Sitting on a stone by a stream, Perseus is nude and has his right leg crossed over his left thigh. His right arm hangs down, resting on his left knee. He looks down and appears distraught. Athena stands behind Perseus at left, wearing a long hooded robe; her face is not visible. Her left hand reaches out toward Perseus. In the background at left, there is a city; a forest is in the upper right. A stream, hills, and trees joins the middle ground to the back ground.