Lot Essay
Both figures in the present pair of bronzes are based on Giambologna models, the Mars and the Hercules in the Hercules and the Dragon (Avery and Radcliffe, op. cit., pp. 93-99 and 131). The absence of the dragon in the present instance is far from unusual, since the fact that the two elements of the group were cast independently must have made it easy for them to be separated. However, it also seems likely that from an early date the Hercules figure was cast on its own.