In the eighteenth century this history painting and its companion piece were hung in a prominent position in the Grande Galerie of the New Palace in Schleißheim. Both recount central episodes from the story of Hercules in classical mythology, taking the Christian, moral treatment of guilt and atonement as their subject. In a fit of madness cast upon Hercules by Hera as a punishment, he murdered his wife, Megara, and the children he had fathered with her. The artist, who came from Verona and was later active in Rome, demonstrates his sovereign mastery of the nude with his figure of the furious hero in particular.