Ivory plaque, Flemish area, 17th century

The carved scene depicts two naked figures, a muscular man holding a lion skin next to him with a club in his right hand and a woman, also naked, standing in front of him.

The club and the skin of the Nemean lion are typical attributes of Hercules, while the female figure next to him, engaged in conversation, with an elegant posture and her hair tied back, can be interpreted as Omphale, queen of Lydia, who, according to myth, reduced Hercules to servitude and forced him to live with her in women's clothing. Omphale is often depicted naked beside him. In canonical depictions, Omphale may wear the lion's skin and/or wield the club, while Hercules is sometimes humiliated with a distaff and spindle.

The relief shows plastic bodies, Michelangelo-esque proportions and refined modelling, characteristics typical of the Flemish Baroque style. The treatment of the vigorous bodies, the highly polished flesh, the fineness of the details and the frame reminiscent of 17th-century taste are perfectly in line with the work of Franciscus van Bossuit (1635–1692) – a famous Flemish ivory sculptor, active mainly in Italy and then in Amsterdam, known for his plaques with mythological and biblical subjects – or that of his circle. The oval faces with straight noses, small mouths, and wavy hair gathered in chignons for the female figures are echoed in the Rijksmuseum's “Venus and Adonis”.