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Lot Essay
The story of Hercules and Omphale was told by Apollodorus (2.6:3) and Ovid. Having violated the sacred rites of hospitality by slaying a guest in his own home, Hercules was obliged to atone for his crime by consenting to sell himself into slavery for a year and giving the money paid for his enslavement to the family of his victim. The celebrated hero was purchased by Omphale, queen of Lydia, whom he was obliged to serve sexually. So subjugated was Hercules to the queen's demands that rumors reached Greece that he had taken to wearing female clothing and would spin and weave in the company of attendants. Lecomte's Mythologie (1604) - a favorite source of the tale for eighteenth century artists who admired its racy undercurrent of sexual role-reversal - notes tersely, 'thus, the formerly invincible hero was reduced to doing things that were unworthy of him, and all for the love of a whore'.
Although the scale of Amigoni's rendering of the story is epic, the artist fully exploits its potential as domestic comedy en travestie. Holding a wool-covered spindle, wearing a woman's silks and seated amid the architecture of a grand, Renaissance palace, Hercules recoils in fear as Omphale appears - her Wagnerian fury belied by the hint of a malicious smile - ready to strike him with the distaff she has just snatched from his hand. A winged putto kneels beside Hercules, adorning his leg with a pearl anklet, while to the right of the composition, a group of three cupids - one blindfolded - prepares to hand over Hercules's great club to Omphale. This group reappears in a small cabinet picture (17.1 x 21.9 in.) by the artist, of different composition but identical subject, that was sold at auction in 1990 (Sotheby's, London, 4 July 1990, lot 18).
The enormous scale and broad handling of the present lot suggest that it may have been one of the huge mythological wall decorations that Amigoni executed for various country houses during his ten-year stay in England (1729-39), although nothing is known of its earliest history. His greatest works from this period of his career comprise the series of large canvases telling the story of Jupiter and Io at Moor Park Mansion, Herts.
Although the scale of Amigoni's rendering of the story is epic, the artist fully exploits its potential as domestic comedy en travestie. Holding a wool-covered spindle, wearing a woman's silks and seated amid the architecture of a grand, Renaissance palace, Hercules recoils in fear as Omphale appears - her Wagnerian fury belied by the hint of a malicious smile - ready to strike him with the distaff she has just snatched from his hand. A winged putto kneels beside Hercules, adorning his leg with a pearl anklet, while to the right of the composition, a group of three cupids - one blindfolded - prepares to hand over Hercules's great club to Omphale. This group reappears in a small cabinet picture (17.1 x 21.9 in.) by the artist, of different composition but identical subject, that was sold at auction in 1990 (Sotheby's, London, 4 July 1990, lot 18).
The enormous scale and broad handling of the present lot suggest that it may have been one of the huge mythological wall decorations that Amigoni executed for various country houses during his ten-year stay in England (1729-39), although nothing is known of its earliest history. His greatest works from this period of his career comprise the series of large canvases telling the story of Jupiter and Io at Moor Park Mansion, Herts.