Art Institute of Chicago

Hercules Seated, study for Hercules and Omphale

François LemoyneLinkedCulture matchlcp-ee23abb25e19

Date: 1724
Medium: Red, black, and white chalk, with stumping, on light brown laid paper, laid down on cream laid paper
Culture: France
Department: Prints and Drawings
Institution: Art Institute of Chicago
Object ID: 151446

From the Art Institute of Chicago record

Carefully distributed across a tan sheet of paper, these studies of a male nude for the figure of Hercules were made in preparation for François Lemoyne’s masterpiece, Hercules and Omphale , painted in Rome in 1724. In the myth illustrated by the work, the Classical hero is reluctantly forced by Omphale to submit to spinning wool like a woman. Interweaving the red, black, and white chalks made famous by Antoine Watteau in the prior decade, this drawing heralds the grace and beauty of the French Rococo while reflecting the powerful experience of Michelangelo’s Sistine Ignudi .

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Provenance: Max Hevesi, Vienna. Sold, Christie’s, New York, Jan. 30, 1998, lot 237, to Dorothy Braude Edinburg, Brookline, MA., given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2013.