LOT 0072

Etruscan Bronze Statuette of Herakles

4TH-3RD CENTURY B.C.

5 3/4 in. (7 5/8 in.) (290 grams total, 14.5 cm high (19.5 cm high including stand)).

Modelled in the round with a muscular nude body, his club lifted in his right hand behind his head, his hair dressed in rows of tight, close-set curls underneath a Nemean lionskin hood with cloak billowing over his left arm, the paws tied across his chest; mounted on a custom-made display stand.

with Sotheby's, New York, 21 November 1985, lot 60.
Ex private New York collection.

Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.11794-206497.

Cf. Colonna, G., ‘Problemi dell’arte figurativa in età ellenistica nell’Italia Adriatica’, in Atti del I⁰ convegno di studi sulle Antichità Adriatiche, Chieti, 1971, pp.172-177; Adam, A.M., Bronzes étrusques et italiques, Paris, 1984, p.190, nos.291-292; cf. also The Metropolitan Museum, New York, accession number 96.9.297, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, accession number 66.41, for comparable figures; for the type see the British Museum no.1895,0408.1, in the British Museum Department of British & Medieval Antiquities, Guide to the Antiquities of Roman Britain, London, 1964, p.54, pl.13,7; for Herakles-Alcides in the Etruscan-Latin world see also Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), vol.V., Zurich, 1990, pp.196-253, s.v. Herakles/Hercle.

The statuette assumes the position of the 'attacking Hercules', which characterises numerous Etruscan statues of the hero of the classical era, however, with a less aggressive stance. The type was probably an Etruscan creation of the 5th century B.C., based on Greek models, which lasted until the end of the Hellenistic period, when Etruria was by then incorporated into the Roman world. This statuette, despite certain anatomical stylisation and an impersonal characterisation of the face, is the result of a good artistic and technical quality. The comparison of the artwork with the group identified as ‘Trieste’ from Colonna shows that this specimen is more recent and should be dated to the end of the Hellenistic Age. These small statuettes were probably offered ex-voto by the Romano-Etruscan aristocracy of the period.