Farnese Hercules

c. 1550/1599

Florentine 16th Century

Associated Names
Florentine 16th Century

Artist

The sculpture shows a muscular man standing in a relaxed pose, leaning against what looks like a tree trunk covered with a lion's pelt. His right arm is bent behind his back, and his left arm is resting on the trunk. The man is nude, displaying defined musculature. He has a full beard and curly hair. The sculpture is a rich, dark brown color with a polished, reflective surface that highlights the contours of his muscles and facial features. The sculpture stands on a rectangular base.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    bronze

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Stanley Mortimer

  • Dimensions

    overall: 56.8 x 27.3 x 25.4 cm (22 3/8 x 10 3/4 x 10 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1960.10.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Stanley Mortimer [1897-1984], New York, and Litchfield, Connecticut;[1] gift 1948 to NGA.
[1] Stanley Mortimer probably inherited the sculpture from his father, also Stanley Mortimer, who was a portrait painter and who in the 1890s built a sixty-room English Tudor manor house on his estate on Long Island and filled it with Renaissance art. (See Steven M.L. Aronson, "A Life in the Country: Patrician bohemians Barbara and Stanley Mortimer look back on a charmed circle of family and friends," House and Garden [April 1984]: 165-171, 230, 232.)

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2017

  • Rubens: The Power of Transformation, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt, 2017-2018, no. 30, repro.

Bibliography

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 155.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 138, repro.

1994

  • Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 87, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q63854429

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