Shop art print and framed art Hercule et Omphale by Peter Paul Rubens

Hercules and Omphale is an oil painting by Peter Paul Rubens in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Produced in 1603, it measures 278 × 215 cm and shows Hercules with Omphale. The picture was painted for the Genoese patron Giovanni Vincenzo Imperiale, who kept it until 1648. It was the counterpart to Death of Adonis. It then passed to Imperiale Francesco Maria (1661), Charles II de Gonzague, Christine of Sweden (1685), Odeschalchi don Livio, Duke of Bracciano (1721), and the Duc d'Orléans, before being acquired by King Louis XVI with the Château de Saint-Cloud in 1785. The painting was restored between 1973 and 1983. After his labours and following his madness, which caused him to kill his family, Hercules was subjected by the oracle at Delphi to a year of servitude to atone for his sin. Bought as a slave by Omphale, Queen of Lydia, he performs a number of feats in her service to rid her kingdom of monsters like the Cercopes and brigands like the Itones. There are various versions of the story of Omphale and Hercules' love affair. The most widespread is that, admiring Hercules' strength and exploits, she made him her lover and then even her husband, after freeing him from servitude. However, in Ovid, Lucian, Propertius and Seneca, Omphale forces Hercules to wear women's clothes and spin wool, while she gives him the skin of the Nemean lion and the club. In Seneca, Omphale goes so far as to punish the hero by blowing him with her slipper. In the 17th and especially 18th centuries, [...]

 

This artwork is a painting from the classical period. It belongs to the baroque style.

 

« Hercule et Omphale » is kept at Louvre, Paris, France.

 

Find the full description of Hercule et Omphale by Peter Paul Rubens on Wikipedia.