In Roman works of art and in Renaissance and post-Renaissance art, Hercules can be identified by his attributes, the lion skin and the gnarled club, his favorite weapon. The Farnese statue was moved to Naples in 1787 with most of the Farnese Collection and is now displayed in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale. Many engravings and woodcuts spread the fame of the Farnese’s Hercules. It stood for generations in its own room at Palazzo Farnese, Rome, where the statue was surrounded by frescoed depictions of the hero’s mythical feats. The sculpture quickly made its way into the collection of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, grandson of Pope Paul III.Īlessandro Farnese was well placed to form one of the most significant collections of classical sculpture that has been assembled since Antiquity. The head had been recovered separately from the legs. The statue was recovered in 1546 reassembled and restored by degrees. This copy was made for the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, which were dedicated in 216 AD. More than once, the sculpture was made ready for shipment to Paris before the Napoleonic regime fled Naples. Napoleon remarked that the omission of the Farnese Hercules from his museum in Paris was the most critical gap in his collection. Several copies of this style of Hercules can be found in museums across the world. The heroic-scale of this depiction of Hercules made it one of the most famous sculptures of Antiquity and has fixed the image of the mythic hero in the European imagination. Like many other much admired Ancient Roman sculptures, the Farnese Hercules is a copy of a much older Greek original that was well known, in this case, a bronze by Lysippos that would have been made in the fourth century BC. The apples symbolize that he has just performed one of the last of “The Twelve Labours.” One of his last Labours was to steal the Golden Apples from the Garden of the Hesperides. Hercules also holds the apples of the Hesperides, concealing them behind his back cradled in his right hand. In myths about Heracles, killing the Nemean lion was his first challenge on his journey to becoming a heroic figure. The club is covered by the skin of the fabled Nemean lion draped over it. It depicts a muscular, yet weary, Hercules in a rare moment of repose as he leans on his knobby club. The Farnese Hercules is an ancient and famous marble statue of Hercules.
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