Nessus and Deianira

Picasso first used a specific subject from Classical mythology during his stay in the French town of Juanles- Pins between September 11 and September 22, 1920, when he made a series of six drawings based on the Greek myth of Nessus and Deianira. Recounted in the ninth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, the story centers on the abduction of Hercules' s bride, Deianira, by the centaur Nessus, who had promised to ferry her across a river. In this drawing, we see the climax of the story, when the struggling woman is about to be raped by her abductor.