Hercules' Dog Discovers Purple Dye

Hercules' Dog Discovers Purple Dye is a c.1636 oil painting by Peter Paul Rubens. It is one of four works on Herculean subjects in the Musée Bonnat in Bayonne.

It shows a story from the Onomasticon of Julius Pollux, a 2nd-century Graeco-Roman sophist, in which Hercules' dog bit a sea snail whilst walking on the beach and dyed his mouth purple. A similar picture of the subject by Theodoor van Thulden is in the Prado Museum.

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