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Lot Essay
Narrated in Apollodorus's Bibliothèkè, the love story between the Greek hero Hercules and Omphale, Queen of Lydia (sometimes also called 'Iole'), was a popular theme in Baroque art. A paragon of physical strength, Hercules successfully undertook the celebrated Twelve Labours, but is here shown spellbound by the beautiful daughter of the River Lardanus. He was so beguiled by love that Omphale was able to force him to dress and act like a girl, which explains the distaff in his left hand. Meanwhile, Hercules's prized trophy, the lion's skin, has become the plaything of two winged cupids, barely visible at the feet of the two lovers, on the left of the canvas.
Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616-1693) mentions an Ercole e Iole painted by Cignani for the Bolognese physician ('Medico') Martelli. Whether that painting can be identified with this canvas is hard to say, as the dimensions were not given nor was any additional information supplied. However, such an elaborate subject is described in greater detail in more recent inventories. The description and dimensions seem, in fact, to correspond to the painting by Cignani recorded from 1767 to 1873 in the Liechtenstein Collection, Vienna. Most of the collection had been acquired and arranged in the Liechtenstein City Palace by Prince Johann Adam Andreas (1657-1712; fig. 1). An avid collector, he focused mainly on the Bolognese school and employed Marcantonio Franceschini (1648-1729), a pupil of Carlo Cignani, to act as his agent in Italy. It is thus probable that Hercules and Omphale entered the collection under his reign, where a work of this subject was recorded by Vincenzo Fanti as being hung in a room especially devoted to Italian masters. By the late nineteenth century, Prince Johannes II (1840-1929) disposed of a part of the collection; the detailed record of a Hercules and Omphale of almost identical dimensions to this canvas can be found in the 1881 auction catalogue of a sale held at the hôtel Drouot in Paris.
A copy of reduced dimensions, from the Castle of Mannheim, was in the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe (Buscaroli Fabbri, 1991, pp. 206-8, no. 78, illustrated).
Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616-1693) mentions an Ercole e Iole painted by Cignani for the Bolognese physician ('Medico') Martelli. Whether that painting can be identified with this canvas is hard to say, as the dimensions were not given nor was any additional information supplied. However, such an elaborate subject is described in greater detail in more recent inventories. The description and dimensions seem, in fact, to correspond to the painting by Cignani recorded from 1767 to 1873 in the Liechtenstein Collection, Vienna. Most of the collection had been acquired and arranged in the Liechtenstein City Palace by Prince Johann Adam Andreas (1657-1712; fig. 1). An avid collector, he focused mainly on the Bolognese school and employed Marcantonio Franceschini (1648-1729), a pupil of Carlo Cignani, to act as his agent in Italy. It is thus probable that Hercules and Omphale entered the collection under his reign, where a work of this subject was recorded by Vincenzo Fanti as being hung in a room especially devoted to Italian masters. By the late nineteenth century, Prince Johannes II (1840-1929) disposed of a part of the collection; the detailed record of a Hercules and Omphale of almost identical dimensions to this canvas can be found in the 1881 auction catalogue of a sale held at the hôtel Drouot in Paris.
A copy of reduced dimensions, from the Castle of Mannheim, was in the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe (Buscaroli Fabbri, 1991, pp. 206-8, no. 78, illustrated).