Hercules and Omphale

A circular frame encloses the shoulder-length portraits of two figures. At the left is a woman wearing a lion-skin headdress, holding a wooden club, and extending her right arm. The fingers of her hand slightly extend beyond the frame as if to break the sense of pictorial illusion. At the right is a bearded man wearing an ivy crown and embracing the woman with his left arm.

Hercules and Omphale

Medium:
Fresco
Dimensions:
41 cm wide, 40.3 cm high
Context:
Herculaneum
Date:
1st century CE
Inventory Number:
MANN 9004
Lender:
National Archaeological Museum of Naples
Credit:
Image © Photographic Archive, National Archaeological Museum of Naples