Herakles is presented here not only as a hero of extraordinary strength and vitality but also as a beautifully groomed—and thus civilized—individual. This aspect is emphasized; on the Andokides amphora, he appears as fully the equal of the god Apollo. Only later do episodes such as the madness that Hera inflicted upon him become prominent in art. The bronze statuette was probably made as a dedication in a sanctuary.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Bronze Herakles
Period:Archaic
Date:last quarter of the 6th century BCE
Culture:Greek
Medium:Bronze
Dimensions:H. 5 1/16 in. (12.80 cm)
Classification:Bronzes
Credit Line:Fletcher Fund, 1928
Accession Number:28.77
Said to be from Mantinea (Richter 1928, p. 268)
[Until 1928, with Joseph Brummer, Paris and New York]; acquired in 1928, purchased from Joseph Brummer, New York.
Langlotz, Ernst. 1927. Fruehgriechische Bildhauerschulen. no. 26, pl. 27, b, Nuremburg: E. Frommann & Sohn.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1928. "A Bronze Statuette of Herakles." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 23(11): pp. 266–68, figs. 1–3.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. pp. 346–47, fig. 248, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Albright Art Gallery. 1937. Master Bronzes, Selected from Museums and Collections in America. no. 71, Buffalo: Burrow.
The Detroit Institute of Arts. 1947. An Exhibition of Small Bronzes of the Ancient World. no. 59, pp. 9, 32, Detroit.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1950. The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks, 3rd edn. pp. 65, 379, fig. 99, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 66, 208, pl. 48a, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Bandinelli, Ranuccio Bianchi. 1966. Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale, Vol. 7. p. 305, fig. 388, Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1978. Antichnoe iskusstvo iz muzeia Metropoliten, Soedinennye Shtaty Ameriki: Katalog vystavki. no. 39, pl. 3, Moscow: Sovetskii Khudozhnik.
Mertens, Joan R. 1985. "Greek Bronzes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 43(2): no. 14, pp. 10, 26–27, 34, 55.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1988. Vol. 4: Eros-Herakles. "Herakles," p. 735, no. 26, pl. 446, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Howard Kathleen. 1994. Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide: Works of Art Selected by Philippe De Montebello. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 89, pp. 86, 422, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Larson, Jennifer, Prof. Jenifer Neils, Ralf von den Hoff, and Guy Michael Hedreen. 2009. "The Singularity of Herakles." Heroes: Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece, Sabine Albersmeier, ed. pp. 36–37, fig. 12, Baltimore: Walters Art Museum.
Hemingway, Seán. 2021. How to Read Greek Sculpture. no. 12, pp. 24, 76–78, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
