Hercules Defeats the Lernaean Hydra by Guido Philipp Schmitt: A One-Headed Monster, as a Vintage Poster (1896)
A bearded hero in a lion skin plants his foot on a scaly monster and drives a long spear into its open jaws. The beast twists under him, its wings crumpled, its claws scraping the rock, while a waterfall pours down the cliff behind them. This is Hercules fighting the Hydra of Lerna, painted in 1896 by the German artist Guido Philipp Schmitt, a member of a whole family of Heidelberg painters. The picture below is our vintage poster of the painting; the original is shown further down.
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Artist: Guido Philipp Schmitt (1834–1922), German painter from Heidelberg
Title: Hercules Defeats the Lernaean Hydra
Date: 1896 (signed and dated “Guido Schmitt 1896”)
Medium: Oil on canvas, 140 × 98.5 cm
Whereabouts: Private collection; last sold at auction in Antwerp in December 2017
Subject: The second of the Twelve Labours of Hercules, from Greek mythology
The second labour
In Greek myth the Hydra lived in the lake of Lerna, in the Argolid, a place said to be an entrance to the underworld. According to the poet Hesiod it was a child of the monsters Typhon and Echidna, with breath and blood so poisonous that even their smell could kill. Killing it was the second of the Twelve Labours that Hercules (the Greek Heracles) had to perform. The ancient writers did not agree on how many heads it had, and later versions added its most famous trick: for every head cut off, two grew back. Hercules only won with the help of his nephew Iolaus, who seared each neck with fire before a new head could sprout.
A Hydra with one head
Look closely and you will see that Schmitt’s monster has only one head. It is a long, armoured creature, half crocodile and half dragon, with bat-like wings and a gaping mouth full of teeth. There are no regrowing heads, no Iolaus and no burning torches: the painter reduces the myth to a single duel between man and beast. He was not the first to imagine it so. In antiquity, the writer known as Heraclitus the Paradoxographer had already tried to make the story more believable by suggesting that the Hydra was really a single-headed snake surrounded by its young.
Hercules wears the skin of the Nemean Lion, the beast he killed in his first labour, with the lion’s head drawn over his own like a hood. His body is the idealised nude of the academies, every muscle tensed as he bears down on the spear. A waterfall behind him and the bones at his feet remind us that this is the monster’s lair.
The painter
Guido Philipp Schmitt was born in 1834 into a dynasty of painters in Heidelberg. He trained with his father, Georg Philipp Schmitt, a respected painter of religious subjects and portraits, and his brother Nathanael was also a painter. Guido made his name as a portrait painter in England, where he lived for some years, and his success there helped his father buy a house in Heidelberg in 1863. He died in Miltenberg, in Bavaria, in 1922. Hercules Defeats the Lernaean Hydra was painted late in his career, when he was in his early sixties.
Why it works as a vintage poster
The poster keeps Schmitt’s painting intact and sets it in a frame of deep red, blue and gold, with laurel sprigs on either side of a bold title. The diagonal of the spear and the coiled body of the monster make the scene readable from across a room. It suits a study, a gym, a teenager’s bedroom or any wall that needs a hero, and makes a strong gift for lovers of Greek mythology. For another monster from myth, read The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli, and for an archangel who defeats a different enemy, see Saint Michael Vanquishing Satan by Raphael.
Hang Hercules and the Hydra — the lion skin, the spear and the monster of Lerna — as a vintage art poster from the Sapiens Verbum print shop.
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Hang Schmitt’s painting as he signed it in 1896, as a print, canvas or framed print from the Sapiens Verbum print shop.
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💬 Over to you: Does a Hydra with one head still feel like the Hydra to you, or did Schmitt take the myth too far? And where in the world are you reading from? Tell us in the comments.
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