Statue of Hercules at Rest

Roman art

This sculpture, the ancient parts of which are the torso and the legs down to the knees, is an exemplar of the Copenhagen-Dresden Hercules type, with his right hand on his hip and his left hand extended along his club. The figure is supported by his right leg, while the left is moved back and to the side. The iconographic type is linked to an original datable to the fourth century BCE, reworked in the Imperial period.

In the Borghese Collection, the sculpture was moved multiple times: it was first installed in the lake garden, then the Casino dei Giochi, after which, in 1826, it was moved inside the Palazzina, to Room II. It is currently in the portico, where it was moved in 1987.

Object details

Commentary

This sculpture, which was originally displayed in the lake garden, was moved to the Casino dei Giochi before 1826. At that time, it was selected as one of the works to be restored and displayed inside the galleries, as indicated in the Statue ed Oggetti di Scultura esistenti a Villa Borghese: ‘Un Ercole levato dal Lago ed esistente nell’andito del Casino dei Giochi’ (‘A Hercules moved from the lake and brought to the passageway of the Casino dei Giochi’). A letter written that same year by Minister Evasio Gozzani details the cost of the restoration: ‘Un Ercole di marmo Greco duro di palmi 7 ¾ compresa la Pianta […] (scudi) 60’ (‘A Hercules in hard Greek marble 7 3/4 palmi including the base 609 scudi’; Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, Archivio Borghese, B. 348, fasc. 33: Moreno, Sforzini 1987, pp. 350–353). In 1832, Nibby mentioned it in Room II of the Palazzina along with two others of the same subject, in the three main niches, and considered all three to be of mediocre quality. The room, which was initially called the Room of the Sun for the radiated colossus, was later called the Room of Hercules on the suggestion of Nibby, who noted that ‘la molteplicità de’ monumenti che oggi racchiude si riferisce ad Ercole’ (‘the many monuments in it today refer to Hercules’; p. 66). In 1893, Venturi mentioned it in Room III, describing it as the Farnese type. The scholar noted that only the torso is original, considering the rest to date to the sixteenth century, probably carved by a ‘seguace di Michelangelo’ (‘follower of Michelangelo’; p. 31). In 1980, Moreno installed it in the garden on the left side of the Palazzina Borghese and labelled it as deriving from an original dating to the fourth century CE, attributed to Lysippos’s early phase (p. 23). In 1987, the sculpture was moved to the portico (Moreno, Sforzini, 1987, p. 350).

The sculpture is an exemplar of the Copenhagen-Dresden Hercules type, named after the statue in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek and another, without a head, in the Albertinum, associated with a sculpture from the fourth century BCE, of which the Borghese work is a replica from the second century CE.

The figure, the ancient parts of which are the torso and the legs down to the knees, is supported by its straight right leg, while the left leg is bent and moved back. The torso, which is inclined, is supported by the club, which is placed under the left arm, which extends along its length. The club, set on a raised bit of ground, is partially covered with the leontè, the animal’s muzzle oriented frontally before the viewer. The figure’s right hand is resting on his hip. His head is turned to the left and his hair and beard are a mass of curls.

In 1893, Arndt compared the sculpture to a similar one in the Museo Torlonia and argued that both derived from an archetype dating to the fourth century BCE and linked to the sculptor Scopas (pp. 17–18, no. 132). Schuckhhardt instead associated the Borghese statue with the early work of the bronze sculptor Lysippus, in about 365 BCE, based on the figure’s pose (1954, pp. 222–223). Finally, Moreno associated the chiastic pose, with the weight of the body supported by the right leg and the left arm, while the bent left leg is at rest and moved back, with a bronze by Polyclitus dated 360 BCE (2003, pp. 89–90, no. 45).

Giulia Ciccarello