An Italian bronze figure of Hercules

An Italian bronze figure of Hercules, the divine hero standing holding his club, his left shoulder draped with the Nemean lion's pelt, with bulging veins to his arms and feet, probably Florence, 17th century, 48.5cm high, later mounted on a black marble plinth, 63.8cm high (overall).

For a comparable bronze almost certainly by the same sculptor see Sotheby's, European Sculpture and Works of Art: Medieval to Modern, 5th December 2012, lot 61. The main difference between the two is the position of the clubs. In the present lot the club is resting on the floor, in the Sotheby's example Hercules is holding the club diagonally across his chest. In their catalogue note Sotheby's stated that the only other known cast of the bronze was attributed to Vincenzo de Rossi by Herbert Keutner in the bronze exhibition 'Die Beschworung des Kosmos'. De Rossi is known to have worked on a series of the 'Labours of Hercules' for Duke Cosimo I. The closest comparison from De Rossi's oeuvre is his statuette of Vulcan in the Studiolo of Francesco I in Palazzo Vecchio. This shares with the present bronze the closely cropped hairstyle and exaggerated musculature.