LOT 0118

Roman Bronze Figure of Hercules with Lion-Skin Headdress

2ND CENTURY B.C.

5 1/2 in. (443 grams total, 14 cm including stand).

Depicting Hercules in heroic nudity, standing with his legs slightly apart, the right leg set back and the left, slightly bent, advanced outward; his right arm raised, the forearm bent at a right angle, while the clenched hand originally held a club, now lost; the left arm extending forward and supporting the lion skin; the left hand, also clenched, probably held a further attribute; the stylised lion skin draped over the hero's head, terminating in two pointed flaps at either side, and fastened across the chest with the so-called 'Heracles knot', beneath which the forepaws of the lion are rendered with deeply incised claw; accompanied by a display stand.

Acquired in Germany before 2000s.
English private collection.
Bertolami Fine Art, London, Auction 85, 14 December 2020, no.11.
This lot has been checked against the Carabinieri Database of stolen works of art.

Cf. a closely comparable group of bronze figures is preserved in the Borghese Collection, Rome, these similarly fragmentary examples were restored in the eighteenth century by the goldsmith Luigi Valadier with additions in bronze and painted plaster and mounted on gilt wooden bases; see also Ciccarello, G., Statua di Ercole in assalto, Arte romana, inv. CCXCIX, Roma: Galleria Borghese, 2022, for the type.

The sculpture reproduces the iconographic type of the charging Hercules, a motif widely attested in ancient Italy, particularly in the Umbro-Sabellian region, and ultimately derived from the Magna Graecia artistic tradition. The widespread adoption of this iconographic scheme, repeated with only minor variations, reflects the development of local cults dedicated to the hero, who was at times assimilated to indigenous deities. It has also been suggested that this type ultimately derives from a bronze original identified as the Herakles Alexikakos, attributed to the Argive sculptor Hageladas, active between the late 6th and early 5th century B.C.