The Capitoline Museum has loaned a sculpture of Medusa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini to the San Francisco Legion of Honor, where the cursed beauty graces the City by the Bay through February.

“Recent conservation efforts have restored the Medusa to its full glory and revealed previously hidden polish and patina,” says the museum. “Believed to date from between 1638 and 1648, this extraordinary work takes its subject from classical mythology, as cited in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. It shows the beautiful Medusa, one of the Gorgon sisters, caught in the terrible process of transformation into a monster. Her hair is turning into writhing snakes, which, according to Ovid, was a punishment from Minerva for having had an affair with Neptune, god of the sea. The punishment also made Medusa an instrument of death by turning anyone who looked upon her to stone. Famously, Perseus overcame Medusa’s curse by looking at her reflection in a shield to behead her.

“Bernini’s depiction does not describe this incident but rather the agony of Medusa’s initial dramatic transformation. Her face is contorted with pain and anxiety and her mouth is open as if crying out.”

According to the museum, this is only the third time that the sculpture has left Rome in four centuries.

The Medusa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini is on view through February 19, 2012 at the Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, 100 34th Avenue, San Francisco, 415-750-3600, legionofhonor.famsf.org.

Franklin Einspruch is an artist and writer.