LOT 0041

Greek Bronze Hercules and Antaeus Statue Group

HELLENISTIC, 3RD-1ST CENTURY B.C.

8 in. (1.01 kg total, 20.3 cm high including stand).

Dynamic scene of two nude wrestlers, the giant Antaeus and Hercules, Hercules lifting Antaeus off the ground with his arms, while Antaeus is trying to pry his arms open to regain contact with Mother Earth, which would restore his strength; set on a custom-made display stand.

Mallams Oxford.
From a UK private collection since the 1970s.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.13333-258242.

See the Uffizi Galleries, Florence, inventory no.OdA 1911 n. 607, for a later marble sculpture showing the wrestlers in a similar stance.

Here, the giant Antaeus is depicted with the more common dimensions of the hero, Hercules. Antaeus was a giant, the son of Neptune and Gaia. Antaeus would challenge all passers-by to wrestling matches and remained invincible as long as he remained in contact with his mother, the Earth. As in Greek wrestling, like its modern equivalent, he typically attempted to force opponents to the ground, and he always won, killing them. He built a temple to his father using the skulls of his defeated opponents. Antaeus fought Hercules as he was on his way to the Garden of Hesperides as his Eleventh Labour. Hercules realised that he could not beat Antaeus by throwing or pinning him. Instead, he held him aloft and then crushed him to death in a bear hug. The scene is famously depicted on a Greek krater dating to the sixth century BC and now in the Louvre, and was a popular subject for Renaissance artists. The episode in which Hercules defeats Antaeus is mentioned in Ovid's Metamorphoses.