The sleeping Hercules with the Pygmies

Cranach employs a palette that balances warm earthy tones for the forest foliage and the pygmies’ garments with cooler, muted hues for Hercules’ skin and the sky. The figures are rendered with the precise linear detail characteristic of the Cranach workshop, while the atmospheric background conveys depth through subtle gradations of colour.

The painting was executed by Lucas Cranach the Younger, who inherited his father’s workshop and continued the family’s prolific output of portraiture and mythological scenes. After remaining in private hands for several centuries, it entered the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister’s collection, where it is displayed among other works of the German Renaissance.