Hercules and Antaeus

Decidedly colder, of unmistakably archaeological flavour, is the output of the Lombard Maderno, who set up a flourishing trade in statuettes derived from the antique. This small bronze is a replica of other sculptures by Maderno of the same subject, of Hellenistic inspiration: it revives in seventeenth-century terms the plastic dynamism of the “Labours of Hercules” of the Renaissance tradition.