Hercules at the Crossroads
Medium
Pen and brown ink, with brush and brown wash, heightened with lead white (oxidized), over black chalk, on tan laid paper, laid down on tan wove paper
Dimensions
23.3 × 21.1 cm (9 3/16 × 8 5/16 in.)
Classification
pen and ink drawings
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
81750
Art Historical Context
Nestled in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints and Drawings collection, *Hercules at the* by Niccolò Berrettoni captures a timeless moral dilemma from classical mythology. The Bolognese artist, active in the 17th and influenced by the Carracci school's dramatic naturalism, depicts the hero Hercules poised between two paths: one leading to Vice's seductive pleasures and the other to Virtue's noble labors. This allegorical theme, popularized in Renaissance and Baroque art through texts like Xenophon's *Memorabilia*, symbolizes the human struggle between temptation and righteousness—a fitting s...