Hercules Strangling the Nemean Lion

c. 1620

As punishment for slaying his own family in a fit of madness, Hercules was sentenced to perform twelve labors—the first of which was to skin the ferocious Nemean lion. After repeated failures, Hercules discarded his weapons and wrestled the beast to the ground. In this drawing, Rubens depicts the two figures locked in combat. Several pentimenti, or visible alterations, indicate where the artist redrew the animal’s right leg and the hero’s back in search for the most effective portrayal of the mythical fight.

Medium	red, yellow and black chalk, brush and red ink, and gouache on paper
Dimensions	12 1/2 x 19 1/16 in. (31.8 x 48.4 cm)
Object Number	1955.992
Acquisition	Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status	Off View

Image Caption

Peter Paul Rubens, Hercules Strangling the Nemean Lion, c. 1620, red, yellow and black chalk, brush and red ink, and gouache on paper. Clark Art Institute, 1955.992

Select Bibliography

Haverkamp-Begemann, Egbert, Standish D. Lawder, and Charles W. Talbot, Jr. Drawings from the Clark Art Institute: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Robert Sterling Clark Collection of European and American Drawings, Sixteenth Through Nineteenth Centuries, at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown. 2 volumes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964. London: The Lawrence Gallery. A Catalogue of One Hundred Original Drawings by Sir P. P. Rubens, Collected by Sir Thomas Lawrence.. 1835. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Twelve: Dutch and Flemish Masters. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1960. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Thirty-one: Drawings of the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: 1965. Wildenstein & Company. An Exhibition of Treasures from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts: Paintings, drawings & rare silver, for the benefit of the Committee to Rescue Italian Art, inc. (CRIA). Exhibition catalogue. New York: Wildenstein & Company, 1967. Musée du Louvre, Galerie Mollien, Paris.. Mariette. April 15-June 15, 1967. Musée du Louvre, Galerie Mollien, Paris.. Mariette. April 15-June 15, 1967. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. A Selection of Drawings from the Collection of the Clark Art Institute. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: The Clark, 1974. British Museum, London. Rubens Drawings and Sketches. July 15-Oct. 30, 1977. The Drawing Center, New York. Creative Copies: Interpretative Drawings from Michelangelo to Picasso. April 9-July 23, 1988. Cat. by Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann with Carolyn Logan.. 1988. Williams College Museum of Art. Hot Dry Men, Cold Wet Women: The Theory of Humors and Depictions of Men and Women in Western European Art of the 1600s. Exhibition brochure. Williamstown, MA: Williams College Museum of Art, 1993. Brooke, David S. Master Drawings: Robert Sterling Clark as a Collector. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1995. Ludwig Burchard and R. A. d'Hulst.. Rubens Drawings.. Brussels: Arcade Press.. 1863.. Guy Isnard.. La Musée Imaginaire du Faux: A Travers l'Histoire de l'Art.. Paris: Imprilith.. 1980 (?).. Providence (RI): Brown University, Bell Gallery, List Art Center. Children of Mercury: The Education of Artists in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. (Exh.cat. by Dept. of Art, Brown Univ., March 2-30, 1984).. Providence.. 1984.. Ganz, James A. "Old Masters in the Clark Collection, Part II: Prints and Drawings" The Magazine Antiques 62, no. 4 (October 1997): 51015. Sutton, Peter C. and Marjorie E. Wieseman. Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens. Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, October 2, 2004- January 30, 2005; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, March 2- May 15, 2005; Cincinnati Art Museum, June 11- September 11, 2005. Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, Cincinnati Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in association with Yale University Press. 2004. Rubens: Picturing Antiquity. Edited by Anne T. Woolett, Davide Gasparotto, and Jeffrey Spier. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Trust, 2021.

Provenance

P. J. Mariette (L. 1852);* Sir Thomas Lawrence (L. 2445); Colnaghi, London (bought by Robert Sterling Clark, 1919). *"L." refers to F. Lugt, Les Marques de collections de dessins et d'estampes, Amsterdam, 1921 and Supplément, The Hague, 1956.