Art Institute of Chicago
Hercules Raising his Club: Study for “Hercules and Cacus”
François LemoyneLinkedCulture matchlcp-ee23abb25e19
- Date
- 1717
- Medium
- Black chalk, with white chalk, on buff laid paper, laid down on laid paper
- Culture
- France
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Institution
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Object ID
- 248310
From the Art Institute of Chicago record
Using only black chalk heightened with white to convey flesh tones, François Lemoyne convincingly depicted the hero Hercules in full swing, fully embodied and activated, and positioned surprisingly like a baseball player at bat. One of two known studies for the figure in Lemoyne’s painting Hercules Clubbing Cacus, this sheet powerfully conveys the artist’s graphic skill. The painting illustrates the 10th labor of Hercules, in which the hero was commanded to bring the monster Geryon’s cattle back to Rome. After discovering that the giant Cacus stole several of the cattle, Hercules clubs him to death.
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Provenance & credit
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- Credit line
- Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray
- Provenance
- Jules Alexandre Duval Le Camus (1814–1878), Paris [stamp (L.1441) recto, lower right, in black]. Christian and Isabelle Adrien, Paris, from 1970; sold, Sotheby’s, Paris, Mar. 22, 2018, lot 43, through François Borne to the Gray Collection Trust, Chicago; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2019.
Linked open data
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- Object type
- AAT300033973
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