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Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Giandomenico Tiepolo

The Apotheosis of Hercules

ca. 1765
Oil on canvas.
101.3 x 85.5 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
397
(
1930.114
)
ROOM 16
Level 2
Permanent Collection
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 13 15 16 17 18 22 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Recommended start of the visitClassical rooms
1 14th Century. Early Italian Painting 2 15th Century. German and Spanish Painting 3 15th Century. Early Netherlandish Painting 4 15th Century. Italian Painting 5 15th and 16th Centuries. Renaissance Portraiture 6 16th Century. Villahermosa Gallery 7 16th Century. Italian Painting 8 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 9 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 10 16th Century. Netherlandish Painting 11 Tiziano, Tintoretto, Bassano and  El Greco 12 17th Century. Caravaggio and Baroque Painting 13 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 14 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 15 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 16 18th Century. Italian Painting 17 18th Century. Italian Painting 18 18th Century. Italian Painting 19 Classical rooms 20 Classical rooms 21 Classical rooms 22 18th Century. Italian Painting 23 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 24 18th Century. French and English Painting 25 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Scenes of Daily Life and Interiors 26 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 27 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Portrait 28 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 29 19th Century. European Painting. Goya and Romanticism  
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Discover some of the secrets and details invaluable to the human eye in this work.

The Apotheosis of Hercules, along with other similar scenes of figures elevated into the heavens, was a commonly depicted subject in Baroque art, used for decorative cycles and in particular for ceiling paintings. The death and subsequent elevation of Hercules to the heavens on the wish of Jupiter is recounted by Ovid in The Metamorphoses. According to the text, the other gods approved Jupiter’s decision as Hercules lay on the funerary pyre, at which point Jupiter commented: “Hercules, who conquers all, will conquer the fire you see there: only the human part, which he owes to his mother, will feel Vulcan’s power. What he derives from me is immortal, beyond the reach of death, and not to be overcome by any flames. When that part has fulfilled its time on earth, I shall receive it into the realms of heaven, confident that my action will be a source of rejoicing to all the gods”. Thus, when Hercules “had put off his mortal shape, the better part of him grew vigorous, and he began to appear greater than before, a majestic figure of august dignity. Then the omnipresent father swept him up through the hollow clouds in his four-horse chariot”. In Giandomenico’s composition the horses are replaced by centaurs, mythical beasts with the head and torso of a man and the body of a horse, symbolising a lower form of human nature.

Within an oval format, Giandomenico located the triumphal chariot to the left of the composition’s vertical axis. In it sits Hercules, symbol of valour and physical force with his body covered with the pelt of the Nemean lion and holding his club. A winged, female figure places a crown on his head while other women follow behind the triumphal retinue. Among the figures accompanying Hercules to his celestial destination, Giandomenico individualized gods such as Mercury with his winged helmet and caduceus, floating on the left, and Time, represented by an old man next to a warrior in armour. The rest of the retinue is made up of a multitude of figures with musical instruments, steering and holding up the clouds on which Hercules proceeds, or simply accompanying him. Most of this preliminary sketch is painted with pale, creamy shades with the more saturated tones such as red and blue used for details such as the draperies.

The sketch entered the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection in 1930 and was attributed in its early catalogues to Giambattista Tiepolo. The canvas has been related to a series of four designs for ceilings for the Russian court. These ceilings survive in the form of prints, one of which has an inscription that refers to Giandomenico as the artist of the work. The present sketch reveals his talents but also reflects the influence of his father in its use of details that had previously appeared in works by Giambattista.

Mar Borobia

18th Century18th Century - Italian paintingPaintingOilcanvas
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The Apotheosis of Hercules. Giandomenico Tiepolo
The Apotheosis of Hercules
Giandomenico Tiepolo

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Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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The Apotheosis of Hercules. Giandomenico Tiepolo
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