Omphale and Hercules, 1830 (fresco on plaster)

Hercules, seated centre, is naked but for a loin cloth; he holds a distaff in his left hand and holds the naked Omphale by the waist with his right; she stands holding the reel of thread which spins from the distaff; two winged putti hold his club, right As punishment for murdering his friend Iphitus, Hercules was by the command of the Delphic Oracle, entrusted as a slave to Omphale, Queen of the kingdom of Lydia, in Asia Minor. There are many late Hellenistic and Roman textual and visual-art references to Hercules' obligation to perform women's tasks, and even wear women's clothes. In this painting Hercules holds the spinning distaff and Omphale is depicted wearing the skin of the Nemean lion. In Renaissance and particularly Baroque painting this often-depicted reversal was interpreted as an illustration of the theme of woman's domination of man. This painting follows the same composition as Gegenbaur's fresco of Hercules and Omphale (1826) at Schloss Rosenstein, which was transferred to canvas and is now in the Thorvaldsen Museum, Copenhagen. Joseph Anton von Gegenbaur (1800-76) was a pupil of Robert von Langer at the Academy in Munich. He made several trips to Rome, before travelling to Stuttgart, where he worked as court painter from 1836 to 1854 on the fresco decoration of the castle at Württemberg. These sixteen scenes illustrated the history of the King's realm. On display at the Prince Consort's Bathroom, Osborne House