This painting was commissioned by Catherine the Great in 1785, when Reynolds was President of the Royal Academy of Arts. He was given the right to choose a subject: ‘I have chosen the theme of the superhuman strength of the infant Hercules, for the subject admits of an analogy – distant perhaps – with the mature and well-known power of the Russian Empire'. The artist took the subject from The First Nemean Ode by the antique Greek poet Pindar: Zeus' jealous wife, Hera, sent poisonous snakes into the room of the infant Hercules, the son of Zeus and Queen Alcmena, to kill him, but he took them up and strangled them. The combination of the drama and decorative effects typical of art of the period with Classical subject matter was typical of English history painting.