Statue of Hercules in Battle

Roman art

This small statuette is part of a group of bronzes of various subject kept in the storerooms of the Palazzina Borghese and that is not mentioned in the inventories or bibliography for the archaeological collection. During the eighteenth century, the goldsmith Luigi Valadier restored this small bronze and used it and three others like it to decorate a long gilt frame, alternated with three small painted panels.

The patinated bronze is an exemplar of the Hercules in Battle type that was especially popular in the bronze production of the Italic world during the Archaic age. The figure is missing the club typical of the iconographic formula and would have originally held it in his raised right hand. His left arm is draped with the leontè, the skin of the Nemean Lion that the hero killed, rendered here as a stylised rectangular fragment.

The sculpture is probably a miniature votive bronze and was likely produced between the fifth and fourth centuries BCE in the Sabellian area between Lazio and Abruzzo.

Object details

Commentary

This statuette represents Hercules standing with his weight on his straight right leg while his slightly bent left leg is turned outward at an angle. His right arm is raised and held out to the side, with the forearm bent inward towards the body. His right hand is in a fist and would have held a club. His left arm, which is bent forwards, is draped with one end of the leontè, the skin of the Nemean Lion killed by Hercules, which falls with a kind of rectangular flourish on the figure’s forearm. His hand is missing a thumb. The pubis is clearly defined, and the pectorals are marked by horizontal and vertical furrows. The figure’s head, which is raised up, is spherical and his features are vague and worn, with round eyes marked by an incised outline. His hair is styled in a kind of bowl cut, his locks arranged in a continuous series of parallel striated ribs.

The sculpture is an exemplar of the Hercules in Battle type that was popular in the Italic world. Balty has linked the Borghese bronze to popular Sabellian bronze production and considers it comparable to a similar one in Fécamp (1961, pp. 22, no. 5, fig. 8; for the comparison: p. 20, no. 2). In a study of Italic bronze production during the Archaic age, Colonna identified various groups based on stylistic analysis of the objects. Given the solid sculptural articulation of the figure and the shape of the round, protruding eyes, the author included the Borghese sculpture in the group of ‘Umbro-Sabellian votive bronzes’, in particular Master C of the ‘Sulmona’ group centred in the Abruzzo area with exportations in Umbria (1970, p. 166, no. 521, pl. CXXVIII). The iconography of Hercules in Battle, widely attested with rare variants, would seem to have developed in about the fifth century BCE, probably influenced by models from Magna Graecia. Woodford and Cassola have imagined that small bronzes depicting Hercules as a fighter are copies of the Herakles Alexikakos, a bronze statue known only through literary sources and attributed to the Argive sculptor Ageladas, who was active between the sixth and fifth centuries BCE (1976, pp. 291–294; 1978, p. 42).

This statuette, currently kept in the storerooms of the Palazzina Borghese, is part of a group of miniature bronzes of various subject that are not mentioned in the inventories or bibliography relative to the archaeological collection. In an exhaustive study published in 2019, Minozzi noted a receipt, dated 1773 and discovered by Gonzàlez-Palacios, for payment for for work done by the goldsmith Luigi Valadier on various small bronzes described as ‘alcune figurine accomodate’ (‘a few repaired figurines’), among which she identified the present group (1993, pp. 37, 50). Study of the receipt, which describes filling in missing parts and attaching the figurines to gilt wooden panels of various shape, led the author to attribute the frames to Valadier (2019, pp. 192–195). The Hercules in Battle was attached, along with three other small bronzes (inv. CCLXXXIV, CCLXXXV, CCLXXXVI), as separators for small paintings along a long frame. EDXRF analysis of the statuette for the exhibition Valadier. Splendore nella Roma del Settecento, held at the Galleria Borghese in 2019, confirmed its authenticity and identified the material as ternary bronze covered with a painted patina. On the basis of stylistic analysis, a likely date for the work would seem to be between the fifth and fourth centuries BCE.

Giulia Ciccarello