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Lot Essay
Guillaume Coustou (1677-1746) was a pupil of his elder brother Nicolas and of his uncle Antoine Coysevox. He won the First Prize in sculpture in 1697 and worked in Rome from then until 1700, with the French sculptor Pierre Legros II. Upon his return to Paris he was received into the Academy and eventually, in 1733 was made Recteur.
The present bronze is based on Guillaume Coustou's marble reception piece to the l'Acadmie royale, on 25 October 1704. That piece shows Hercules sitting on his funeral pyre and desperately tearing at the poisoned tunic, mistakenly given to him by his wife Deianeira in the belief that the tunic was covered in love-potion. However, in the case of the present bronze the composition has been altered so that Hercules sits on a tree trunk and not on the funeral pyre of Coustou's original vision.
The present bronze is based on Guillaume Coustou's marble reception piece to the l'Acadmie royale, on 25 October 1704. That piece shows Hercules sitting on his funeral pyre and desperately tearing at the poisoned tunic, mistakenly given to him by his wife Deianeira in the belief that the tunic was covered in love-potion. However, in the case of the present bronze the composition has been altered so that Hercules sits on a tree trunk and not on the funeral pyre of Coustou's original vision.