0528aHeraclesChoice

?=ogcma0430.14Fates_Vischer?

Peter Vischer the Younger, 1487-1528, "The Fates appear to the Sleeping Hercules with Somnus," 1514/15; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett KdZ 1082.

Vischer's depiction is remarkable, innovative, and unprecedented. The scene Vischer creates is modeled closely upon the familiar motifs of the Judgment of Paris (e.g. Lucas Cranach the Elder's), although here the players are (named in captions as) Heracles, Somnus ("Sleep"), and the Fates (or Parcae) Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos. Vischer is so connected to his model that Somnus here wears Hermes' petasus and winged "talaria". The Parcae differ in age as do typically Artemis, Athena, and Hera in Paris Judgments.

Dieter Wuttke, 1964, Die Histori Herculis des Nürnberger Humanisten und Freundes der Gebrüder Vischer, Pangratz Bernhaubt gen. Schwenter: Materialien zur Erforschung des deutschen Humanismus um 1500 (Köln, Böhlau) 105-10, 131-40 with plate 1. [pdf on file]

Panofsky, Erwin. 1930. Hercules am Scheideweg und andere antike Bildstoffe in der neueren Kunst. Studien der Bibl. Warburg, 18. Leipzig-Berlin. P. 98-99 w/ plate 23.

For color, hi-res image, see Renaissance and Reformation: German art in the age of Dürer and Cranach, exhibition catalog (LACountyMuseum of Art/Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2016), cat. 77, p. 157. (JPG in assets.)