Study of Hercules Resting, with Separate Studies of His Head and Foot (recto); Rectangular grid design (verso)

Prints and Drawings

1595/97

Annibale Carracci
Italian, 1560–1609

This is a highly finished study for a fresco mural of the same subject in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. Hercules, the hero of Greek myth, is identified by his club, a lion’s hide, and the apple in his right hand. Though lifelike, the figure was not drawn from a live model but rather from statues available to the artist in Rome, especially an ancient Roman
sculpture of a reclining river god.

The blue paper creates a mid tone between the black and white chalks, granting Hercules a greater degree of volume and naturalism and dramatically enhancing Annibale Carracci’s fluid, masterful line.

Status: On loan to The Morgan Library and Museum for Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Annibale Carracci
Title: Study of Hercules Resting, with Separate Studies of His Head and Foot (recto); Rectangular grid design (verso)
Origin: Italy
Date: 1595–1597
Medium: Black chalk, heightened with white chalk, on blue laid paper
Dimensions: 259 × 395 mm
Credit Line: Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray
Reference Number: 2019.838
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Klaus Herding, Pierre Puget: Das bildnerische Werk (Gebr. Mann, 1970), p. 209, under no. 103.
Diane De Grazia, “Carracci Drawings in Britain and the State of Carracci Studies,” Master Drawings 36, 3 (1998), p. 297.
Daniele Benati et al., The Drawings of Annibale Carracci, exh. cat. (National Gallery of Art, 1999), p. 136, fig. 2, under cat. 34.
Diane De Grazia et al., Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art, exh. cat. (Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000), p. 46, under cat. 13.
Silvia Ginzburg Carignani, Annibale Carracci a Roma: Gli Affreschi di Palazzo Farnese (Donzelli, 2000), p. 39 n. 7.
Klaus Herding, Pierre Puget (catalogue raisonné, forthcoming), under rejected attributions.

London, Thomas Williams Fine Art, Old Master Drawings, 1999, cat. 11. Art Institute of Chicago, Gray Collection: Seven Centuries of Art, Sept. 25, 2010–Jan. 2, 2011, cat. 19 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection”, January 25 - May 10, 2020, p. 19, fig. 3, p. 133, GC 26.

Emile Wauters, Paris [stamp (Lugt 911) recto, lower left, in black]; sold, Frederick Muller and Cie, Amsterdam, June 15, 1926, possibly part of lot 246 (as Pierre Puget). Private collection, Birmingham, England; by descent; sold, Sotheby’s, London, Dec. 1, 1966, lot 84 (as Pierre Puget). Colnaghi, London; sold, Sotheby’s, London, Oct. 10, 1974, lot 295 (attributed to Pierre Puget). Mathias Polakovits, Paris [stamp (not in Lugt) recto, lower right, in black]; by descent; sold, Sotheby’s, New York, Jan. 28, 1998, lot 18 (as Annibale Carracci). Thomas Williams Fine Art, London, 1999; sold to Richard and Mary L. Gray, Chicago, July 6, 1999; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2019.

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