FRANCESCO RUSCHI (b. Rome, active 1643-1656)

Hercules and Omphale

Details

FRANCESCO RUSCHI (b. Rome, active 1643-1656)
Hercules and Omphale
oil on canvas
38¼ x 48 in. (97.2 x 121.9 cm.)

Provenance

Anon. Sale, Sotheby's, New York, 17 June 1982, lot 161.
with Piero Corsini, New York.

Literature

R. Pallucchini, La Pittura Veneziana del Seicento, Milan, 1981, I, p. 164; and II, p. 648, fig. 485, as Private collection, Rome.

Lot Essay

The subject of the present work is taken from Apollodorus 2.6:3. Hercules was sold as a slave to Omphale, queen of Lydia, for three years as punishment for the murder of his friend Iphitus. In this time the great Greek hero grew effeminate and took to wearing women's clothes and spinning yarn. Nonetheless he managed to turn the situation to his advantage by taking the queen as his lover.

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