François Lemoyne
French, 1688–1737
Hercules Raising his Club: Study for “Hercules and Cacus”
INV-2483
François Lemoyne
French, 1688–17371717
Hercules Raising his Club: Study for “Hercules and Cacus”
François Lemoyne French, 1688–1737 →drawings (visual works)chalk
Date
1717
Medium
Black chalk, with white chalk, on buff laid paper, laid down on laid paper
Dimensions
41 × 24.7 cm (16 3/16 × 9 3/4 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray
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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