Art Institute of Chicago

Hercules and Lichas

Filippo Falciatore

Date

n.d.

Medium

Black chalk with pen and brown ink and brush and blue-green wash on pieced ivory laid paper, pricked for transfer

Culture

Italy

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Filippo Falciatore was a mid-century master who excelled at an ornamental rococo style with baroque flourishes. This rare sheet juxtaposes violently entwined mythological figures with decorative floral motifs. The subject would have been a familiar part of the landscape of Naples; the famous ancient sculpture known as the Farnese Hercules appears in the the Art Institute’s Neapolitan crèche . Here the tragic hero flings his manservant Lichas into the Aegean Sea. Hercules’s wife, Deianira, had sent Lichas to deliver a cloak dipped in the toxic blood of a centaur who had tried to abduct her, believing the potion would keep Hercules faithful. Instead it drove him mad and eventually killed him.

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