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Hercules Delivering the Erymanthean Boar to Eurystheus

Artist:
François Lespingola (French, 1644–1705)
Date:
last quarter 17th century
Culture:
French, probably Paris
Medium:
Bronze
Dimensions:
Overall, maximum dims (confirmed): 16 3/8 × 14 [edge of base to cuff of sleeve] × 11 1/4 in. [boar crest to boar hoof], 32.8 lb. (41.6 × 35.6 × 28.6 cm, 14.9 kg)
Base: 12 3/4 × 6 1/4 in. (32.4 × 15.9 cm)
Classification:
Sculpture-Bronze
Credit Line:
Gift of Irwin Untermyer, 1964
Accession Number:
64.101.1486
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 899
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.
[ French and Co., New York ] ; Mr. and Mrs. Francis Kleinberger , New York (until 1932; sale, American Art Association–Anderson Galleries, New York, November 19, 1932, no. 57, as by Coysevox); Cortlandt Field Bishop , New York (until 1935; sale, American Art Association–Anderson Galleries, New York, November 21–23, 1935, no. 587, as Antoine Coysevox); [ French and Co., New York (in 1960) ] ; Irwin Untermyer , New York (until 1964; to MMA)

Timelines
France, 1600-1800 A.D.

Highlights of the Untermyer Collection of English and Continental Decorative Arts
European Sculpture, 1400–1900, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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