Pasquale Romanelli (1812-1887) studied at the Academy in Florence under Luigi Pampaloni and Lorenzo Bartolini, swiftly becoming the favoured pupil and protegé of the latter. He worked in Bartolini's studio as his collaborator, and on his master's death took over the atelier. In 1861 Theodosia Trollope visited Romanelli's studio in Florence, and her contemporary review provides a fascinating account of his successful and prolific workshop (The Art Journal, op. cit). Romanelli worked on several public monuments, of which the most celebrated and beautiful is his Monument to Vittorio Fossombroni in the Piazza S. Francesco in Arezzo. He specialised also in mythological and decorative marble figures, such as his Youthful Bacchus, his La Delusa for the Paris Great Exhibition, his set of The Four Seasons for Lord Portarlington and the present Andromeda. Trollope also mentions a figure of William Tell's Son "the gem of this studio" for Mr Vanderbilt of New York, and it is evident that Romanelli enjoyed international acclaim and a wide spectrum of patrons.
In choosing Andromeda as his subject matter Romanelli was returning to a theme popular in sculpture during the 17th and 18th centuries, and his treatment of it moves away from the classicism of Bartolini towards a more animated baroque style. Andromeda, the daughter of an Ethiopian king, had been chained to a rock by the sea as a sacrifice to a sea-monster. Perseus flying above, saw her, fell in love and rescued her. Andromeda is shown as a more classical figure, one arm raised in anguish to her head, the other with clenched fist, the smooth planes of her body contrasting effectively with the richly textured monster, the rough rock and the sea spume.