CIRCLE OF NICOLÒ ROCCATAGLIATA | HERCULES RESTING

Private Collection, Sweden, until 2015

Depicting the demi-god with his iconic attribute of the club, the present bronze represents a model that has long been associated with Nicolò Roccatagliata, the Venetian sculptor famed for his large oeuvre of bronze statuettes, alongside larger commissions for Venetian churches. After Nicolò's death, his workshop was inherited by his son, Sebastiano Nicolini, and continued to produce bronzes in the master's distinctive style. Further versions of the Hercules are housed in important museums and institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 27.36.5), Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (inv. no. 1958.73), and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. A further cast was formerly in the Maurice Kann collection and sold in his 1910 sale as lot 341.

RELATED LITERATURE

Leo Planiscig, Venezianische Bildhauer der Renaissance, Vienna, 1921, p. 623, fig. 697