Seated Herakles
- Title:
- Seated Herakles
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Unknown (Roman copy)
Lysippos (Greek original) (original)
- Photographer:
- Alexandridis, Annetta
- Date:
- ca. 1890-1900
1st-3rd c. CE (?) (Roman copy)
ca. 330-320 BCE (Greek original)
2008 (image)
- Site:
- Unknown (original)
- Location:
- Goldwin Smith Hall, former Temple of Zeus space
previously, Warehouse
Unknown (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0153
- Accession Number:
- Sage no. 286
1026 (carved in front)
286 (modern sticker on plinth)
153 - File Name:
- CCC_0153.tif
- Original Measurements:
- 46 (H) cm
- Culture:
- Roman, after Greek
- Style/Period:
- Roman Imperial, after Greek Late Classical or Early Hellenistic
- Work Type:
- casts (sculpture)
- Materials/Techniques:
- plaster cast (sculpture)
marble sculpture in the round (original) - Subject:
- Heracles (Greek mythology)
- Image View Type:
- overall
- Image View Description:
- from front
- Measurement:
- 50 (with plinth) x 18 x 34 (centimeters, height x width x diameter)
- Description:
- This is a moderately damaged but otherwise well-preserved cast of a seated statuette of Herakles. The original is in a private collection in Geneva. It is a Roman copy of a type known as the Herakles Epitrapezios, the fourth century BCE original of which is securely attributed to Lysippos. The bearded, nude hero sits on a rock with his left leg forward and right leg bent back. He extends his right arm forward (broken and hanging by threads in this cast), holds apples in his right hand, and rests his left hand on a short, knotted club. He turns his head to his right and looks up with inset eyes. His hair is curly and short and his head is wreathed. His beard is doughy in this cast but more well-defined in the original. The apples Herakles holds here are modern restorations, just as they are in a copy of the Epitrapezios in the British Museum (no. 1805,0703.39). His right hand is missing from the original statuette in Geneva, but it is probable that he held a cup in it. The left foot and oblong base are probably modern restorations. This cast was produced from a cast in the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris which is, as this one, labeled "1026" at the front of its oblong base. The whereabouts of the original from which the cast came had been unknown since ca. 1850, but the statuette was recognized in the late 1980s in a private collection in Geneva held by P. Sciclounoff. The Herakles Epitrapezios type is known from several, mostly small-scale copies of Lysippos' work, but also from some on a larger scale. Attribution of the Herakles Epitrapezios to Lysippos as well as the appearance of the bronze original are quite secure owing to references to the work by the Roman poets Martial and Statius, who each saw the work in the collection of Novius Vindex. Statius (Silvae 4.6.32-109) credits Lysippos with the creation of the statuette and describes Herakles as seated on a rock covered by the skin of the Nemean Lion and holding a club in one hand and a cup in the other. Statius recounts that Alexander the Great was its first owner, that it decorated Alexander's table (thus, the epithet 'Epitrapezios'), and that he carried the portable sculpture with him on his campaigns. After Alexander, it passed into the hands of Hannibal and Sulla, among others, before making its way into Vindex's collection. Martial (IX.44) specifically notes that Lysippos' signature (or perhaps name?) appeared on the base of the statuette in Novius' collection.
- Notes:
- Items in the Cornell Cast Collection are meant for inventory and reference purposes. Metadata may not be complete in all cases.
- Bibliography:
- Elizabeth Bartman, Ancient Sculptural Copies in Miniature (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 147-186
Jean Ouvry, “Une réplique de l’Héraclès Epitrapezios retrouvée,” Antike Kunst 32 (1989), 152-154, pl. 30
J. J. Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 50-51
Paolo Moreno, Lisippo, L'Arte e la Fortuna (Milan: Fabbri Editori, 1995), 347-351, esp. 348, fig. 2
Fernand de Visscher, Heracles Epitrapezios (Paris: Boccard, 1962), 51, pl. XXIII, fig. 19
Franklin P. Johnson, Lysippos (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1927), 98-104 - Repository:
- Cornell University (current)
Geneva, private collection of P. Sciclounoff; widely reproduced "master" cast in Paris, École des Beaux-Arts (original) - Collecting Program:
- Cornell Collections of Antiquities
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- The images in the Cornell Collection of Antiquities: Casts are protected by copyright, and the copyright holders are their creators, generally Cornell University Library, Annetta Alexandridis, and Verity Platt. This collection of plaster casts owned by Cornell University was photographed by Cornell University Library, Alexandridis, Platt, and Andreya L. Mihaloew from 2010-2015, with funding from a Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences Grant to Annetta Alexandridis. Cornell is providing access to the materials for research and personal use. The written permission of any copyright and other rights holders is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use that extends beyond what is authorized by fair use and other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Please contact Annetta Alexandridis and Verity Platt for more information about this collection, or to request permission to use these images.