Classified in the collections of Brun and Fernández Durán as by Paolo Farinati (1524-1606). The silvery finish, suggested by the copious white heightening on a support of light blue-grey paper, is strongly reminiscent of the style of some of the finished drawings by Paolo Veronese (1528-1588) and a number of his followers, including Paolo Farinati, to whom it was formerly given. The attribution to Domenico Brusasorci is based on a comparison of style and technique with the artist´s undoubtedly authentic drawings, including two in the Louvre: the Parable of the Wedding Feast and St. George and the Dragon. The first, which is datable to the 1550s, like the Prado drawing, is a finished drawing in pen and brown wash, heightened with white, but this time on light brown paper (inv. no. 10103; Paris, 1993, no. 12). The second, which is strikingly close in the placement of the protagonists in an open landscape background, as well as in the structure of equine anatomy, shows figure types that are a good match for Dejanira´s bony physiognomy, with deeply set eye-sockets, not to mention her tightly fitting drapery (inv. no. 10286; Paris, 1993, no. 13).

According to legend, while on their travels together, Hercules and Dejanira, who was the daughter of the river god Oenus, came to the river Evenus, where the centaur Nessus was the ferryman. As Nessus carried Dejanira across the water, he tried to ravish her, whereupon Hercules, still left on the further bank, drew his bow and killed him with a poisoned arrow, which afterwards became the cause of the death of Hercules.

The Prado drawing was first freely blocked in with black chalk, the subsequent outlines in pen and ink not always following these initial contours, for example in the rushes growing at the riverside in the left foreground and in Nessus´s forelegs (Text drawn from Turner, N.: From Michelangelo to Annibale Carracci. A century of Italian drawings from the Prado, Art Services International-Museo Nacional del Prado, 2008, p. 96).