Hercules Delivering the Erymanthean Boar to Eurystheus

François Lespingola

last quarter 17th century · Bronze · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Hercules’ fourth Labor was to drag before King Eurystheus a wild boar that had been wreaking devastation around Mount Erymanthus. This spirited composition divulges some of Lespingola’s experiences in Italy between 1672 and 1675. The figure of Hercules is poised to fling the beast in the same way David is ready to sling his shot at Goliath in the marble masterpiece by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1623–24; Galleria Borghese, Rome). Presumably Lespingola got to know the dramatic bronze groups invented by Massimiliano Soldani and Giovanni Battista Foggini in Florence. His are ruggedly textured, their reddish metal having been lightly peened all over to produce surfaces as lively and painterly as the compositions themselves.

Artist

François Lespingola

Date

last quarter 17th century

Medium

Bronze

Culture

French, probably Paris

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

Gift of Irwin Untermyer, 1964