ÉCOLE FRANÇAISE DE LA FIN DU XVIIE SIÈCLE D'APRÈS ALESSANDRO ALGARDI (1598-1654)

Lot 93
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12000 - 18000 EUR
ÉCOLE FRANÇAISE DE LA FIN DU XVIIE SIÈCLE D'APRÈS ALESSANDRO ALGARDI (1598-1654)
Hercules as a child choking a snake White marble Dim. : 46 x 53 x 21,5 cm(Soiling, wear to the nose) RELATED WORKS - Alessandro Algardi, Hercules as a child with a snake, bronze, Rome, Galleria nazionale d'Arte Antica, inv. - After Alessandro Algardi, Hercules child and the snake, bronze, H. 40 x W. 48 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. OA 5068 RELATED LITERATURE Jennifer Montagu, Alessandro Algardi, London, Yale University Press, 1985, model listed under cat. 127.C.11, p.407 Hercules, born of the adulterous affair between the god Jupiter and the mortal Alcmene, smothers a snake sent by Juno with the aim of murdering the child in his sleep. This marble is based on Alessandro Algardi's model of Hercules as a child with a serpent. The Italian sculptor, having knowledge of the Roman marble of the 2nd century AD (Rome, Capitoline Museum, Rome) (Rome, Capitoline Museum, inv. MC0247), became interested in this theme around 1650 and produced several bronzes that are distinguished by the attitude of the snake. Our marble is particularly close to the bronze preserved in the National Gallery of Ancient Art in the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, where the reptile wrapped around the arm of the young Hercules folds in on itself in order to bite itself. With this solid composition, the muscularity that can be seen in the supple flesh and the determined gaze of Hercules, Alessandro Algardi prefigures the heroic destiny of the demigod. In the 17th century, the success of the model led to numerous copies in marble.
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