Hercules, Deianira and the Centaur Nessus

The centaur Nessus offered to carry Deianira, the wife of Hercules, across a flooded river, and on the far bank tried to carry her off. Hercules brought him down with an arrow dipped in the poison of the Hydra. Dying, Nessus told Deianira to keep his blood as a love charm. Years later, afraid of losing her husband, she soaked a shirt in it and sent it to him, and the poison in the blood killed Hercules. Veronese painted the chase around 1586, two years before his own death, on a small canvas about 68 by 53 centimetres. The museum notes the gloomy, autumnal colours and open brushwork of his late style. It hangs as the companion of a Venus and Adonis of the same size, another love story with a death waiting in it.