Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Male Nude as Hercules
Jacques Louis David French
Not on view
With a name suggestive of the setting in which they were made, académies, or studies of male nudes, were an essential component in the training of young artists in eighteenth-century France. Props were sometimes included as vague allusions to historical and mythological characters. In this case, the chain presages David’s lifelong interest in themes of imprisonment and liberty.