Hercules and Omphale by Francois Boucher - 1730s - 90 х 74 cm The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art Hercules and Omphale by Francois Boucher - 1730s - 90 х 74 cm The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art

Hercules and Omphale

oil on canvas • 90 х 74 cm
  • Francois Boucher - 29 September 1703 - 30 May 1770 Francois Boucher 1730s

Boucher's early works reveal his connections with seventeenth-century art. As a young man he made copies and engravings of another great master of Rococo, Watteau.

His "Hercules and Omphale" was executed under the impression of Ruben's full-blooded, temperamental painting, but the subject is typical if Rococo. Sold into slavery to Queen Omphale of Ludia and doomed to do a woman's work, Hercules suddenly appears as a passionate lover ready to please his mistress's slightest whim.

That kind of scenes were typical for Rococo.