Lot Essay
A bronze of this subject was recorded in the 1684 inventory of King Louis XIV: 'Un Hercule, aussy de bronze, couvert d'une peau de lion, qui porte deux colonnes, hault, avec les colonnes, de 16 pounces' (Guiffrey, loc. cit.). The dimensions are not the same, but the French royal piece could well have been a smaller scale version of the same invention.
The episode of Hercules with the pillars, although not one of the hero's labours, was sanctioned by classical precedent, but must always have represented a technical challenge for sculptors. A Florentine bronze, probably after a model by Pietro Tacca, in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, represents an iconographic precedent, as does a bronze in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Valenciennes, which has been convincingly attributed to Michel Anguier (Wardropper, loc. cit.). Neither of these bronzes, however, directly inspired the composition of the present piece, whose heroic stance and sense of movement is strikingly different from the more withdrawn and reflective approach adopted by Anguier.
The episode of Hercules with the pillars, although not one of the hero's labours, was sanctioned by classical precedent, but must always have represented a technical challenge for sculptors. A Florentine bronze, probably after a model by Pietro Tacca, in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, represents an iconographic precedent, as does a bronze in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Valenciennes, which has been convincingly attributed to Michel Anguier (Wardropper, loc. cit.). Neither of these bronzes, however, directly inspired the composition of the present piece, whose heroic stance and sense of movement is strikingly different from the more withdrawn and reflective approach adopted by Anguier.