Hercules Fighting the Nemean Lion

Zurbarán painted Hercules Fighting the Nemean Lion around 1634 as one of a series of ten Hercules paintings commissioned for the Hall of Realms in the Buen Retiro Palace. The Hercules series was intended to celebrate Philip IV's monarchy through the mythological parallel of the hero's labors, Hercules being the legendary ancestor of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. Zurbarán's treatment is characteristically physical and austere: the struggling bodies of man and lion rendered with his monumental, sculptural figure style, the tenebrism creating deep shadows that give the wrestling figures an almost relief-like quality. The series represents a major departure from his usual monastic and devotional subject matter, demonstrating his ability to adapt his formidable technical skills to the demands of secular dynastic mythology.

The muscular confrontation between Hercules and the lion is rendered with Zurbarán's strong tenebrism, though the anatomical modeling reveals less familiarity with the classical nude than with his customary draped religious figures.