Gradenigo Hercules

Object belonging

One's own

Category

Bronze sculpture

City

Rome

Location

Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia

Specific location

Room 17

Inventory

PV 10797

Material and technique

Gilded, fired bronze

Author

Venetian School

Dating

Late 16th-early 17th century

Dimensions

22 x 10.5 x 8.5 cm.

Origin

Auriti Collection (1963)

Image copyright

SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

This bronze is known as the Gradenigo Hercules due to the fact that the hero's left hand is resting on the emblem from the Gradenigo family coat of arms. The latter is made up of thirteen steps and is surmounted by the doge’s horned hat. Santangelo believed the bronze to have been produced in Venice in the early 17th century, designed to decorate a cabinet or another item of furniture. A similar version is held at the Nationalmuseum Bayresches in Munich, thought too to be a Venetian work dating from the 17th century, one of many other versions of this bronze to have been identified, together with similar works that depict the hero in repose. All these versions possess identical dimensions and were probably sculpted by the same artist. The strong rendering of Hercules' facial features seems to be derived from a live model, a fact that has led some scholars to suggest that the portrait is in fact a member of the Gradenigo family. The Gradenigos were one of the most important Venetian families, producing not only doges, but also writers, prelates and soldiers.

Pietro Cannata

Bibliography

L. Planiscig, Die Wappenhalter der Familie Gradenigo,  in "Jahrbuch der Preußischen Kunstsammlungen, LXIII,  1912, pp. 16-18; A. Moschetti, Il Museo Civico di Padova: cenni storici e illustrativi, 1938, p. 224, fig. 104.