Achille découvert par Ulysse parmi les filles du roi Lycomède

The myth of Achilles hidden among the daughters of King Lycomedes on the island of Scyros was a perennially popular subject in academic painting because it offered both erotic and heroic content simultaneously — the greatest warrior of antiquity disguised as a girl, discovered by the cunning of Odysseus. Hamon's 1849 canvas on this subject, held in Saint-Brieuc, was made during his early career, before his mature neo-Grec aesthetic fully crystallised. The subject had been treated by Poussin, Rubens, Van Dyck, and numerous French academic painters, each emphasizing different elements — Achilles's military revelation, the girls' astonishment, or the erotic charge of the disguise. Hamon's version from 1849 places the work at the start of the Second Republic, a period of cultural renewal that saw renewed interest in classical antiquity as a source of both political and aesthetic models.

An early work dating to 1849 would show Hamon still developing his smooth, light-filled surface. The mythological subject demanded careful figure arrangement and historical costuming. His colour choices likely already favour pale, luminous flesh against bright drapery, anticipating the neo-Grec manner of his mature work.