The mythical hero Perseus beheaded the monstrous gorgon Medusa, whose gaze turned to stone anyone who looked at her. In Solomon's drawing the figure of Perseus, helmeted and with the artist's own addition of wings and a halo-like circle of light around his head, holds up the Medusa's head as a trophy. Rather than seeming triumphant, however, he shares the brooding and withdrawn melancholy of many of Solomon's late figures.