Hercules And The Centaur Nessus - Cabinet Bronze, Germany, 16th Century

This superb gilded bronze relief represents the mythical Hercules confronting the centaur Nessus. The ancient writings tell us how while the hero, accompanied by his wife, was trying to cross the Evenos, the centaur Nessus proposed to him to charge Deianira on him, seizing this opportunity to kidnap her. Alerted by the cries of his wife, Hercules goes after the centaur and kills him. On our bronze, the hero is recognizable by his traditional attributes, his mass and the "leonté" (skin of the Nemean lion) which he wears as clothing. Our relief is part of a serie of gilt bronze reliefs celebrating the exploits of Hercules, which once adorned the cabinets of Renaissance amateurs and collectors. The old Van den Hoeven collection presented a relief from this same serie depicting the confrontation of Hercules and the Nemean Lion, some contemporary equivalents of which are still circulating on the art market today. Our relief, which is rarer, has only one equivalent to our knowledge, preserved today in a Parisian collection.