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LOT 0064
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 resting on his shoulder and the hair dressed in rows of tight, close-set curls underneath the Nemean lionskin hood with cloak billowing over his left arm, the paws tied across his chest; mounted on a custom-made display stand.
Provenancewith Sotheby's, New York, 21 November 1985, no.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.
FootnotesThe 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.
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LOT 0064
Etruscan Bronze Statuette of Herakles
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000€23,200 - 34,800 (for guidance only)$27,000 - 40,500 (for guidance only)
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Greek Painted Terracotta Juglet
8th-7th century B.C.Sold for (Inc. bp): £111
With applied handle and integral foot, horizontal painted lines to the equator, concentric rings to the shoulder. 56 grams, 74 mm
Property of a Gloucestershire, UK, collector. Property of an East Sussex, UK, gentleman. -
Greek Epichyses with Reclining Female Holding a Patera
Apulian, 4th century B.C.Estimate: £1,800 - 2,400 (+bp*)
Opening Bid: £900
Enlivened with crimson, ochre and white slip; with rays on the neck, the shoulder showing a lady of fashion lying, adorned with earrings and bracelets, holding a patera in her right hand, and foliate sprigs in the field; palmette at the base of the handle, and grape vine on the cotton reel body. 229 grams, 16.5 cm
Ex Ancient Art Shop, Windsor, UK, in the 1990s. Heads and Tales exhibition, Piccadilly, London, 2002. From the collection of PA, Hertfordshire, UK.
Stretched-out figures of women or Eros appear frequently on the shoulders of epichyseis in the Menzies group. This epichyseis substituted the image of a woman to that of Eros, sitting nude in other identical vessels on a dotted white and white-stripe ground line with his legs outstretched before him. The woman holds in his right hand a patera, exactly as the Eros on the epichyses in the Getty Museum. The position of the woman, the treatment of the dress and the position of the legs, as well as the palmette decoration and adjuncts would suggest to associate the vase with the Menzies Group. -
Etruscan Bronze Statuette of Herakles
4th-3rd century B.C.Estimate: £20,000 - 30,000 (‡+bp*)
Opening Bid: £10,000
Modelled in the round with a muscular nude body, his club resting on his shoulder and the hair dressed in rows of tight, close-set curls underneath the Nemean lionskin hood with cloak billowing over his left arm, the paws tied across his chest; mounted on a custom-made display stand. 290 grams total, 14.5 cm high (19.5 cm high including stand)
Fine condition, excellent uniform patina.
with Sotheby's, New York, 21 November 1985, no.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.
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.
