Hercules and Antaeus
Medium
Engraving; main figures and parts of tree pricked for transfer
Dimensions
Height: 13 15/16 in. (35.4 cm) Width: 9 11/16 in. (24.6 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1918
Accession Number
18.65.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the late 15th century, Andrea Mantegna, a pioneering Italian Renaissance artist renowned for his mastery of perspective and classical motifs, collaborated with Gian Marcoalli to create *Hercules and Antaeus* around 1497. This dynamic engraving captures the climactic moment from Greek mythology when the hero Hercules lifts the giant Antaeus off the earth—depriving him of his mother Gaia's life-giving strength—to crush him in victory. Mantegna's precise, sculptural figures evoke ancient Roman sarcophagi, blending mythological drama with Renaissance humanism. The work's medium is particularly...
About the Artist
Andrea Mantegna|Gian Marco Cavalli · 1431–1506
Andrea Mantegna was born around 1431 near Padua, in the Venetian Republic, the son of a carpenter. At approximately age eleven he was taken into the workshop of the Paduan painter and antiquities collector Francesco Squarcione, who enrolled him as a guild member and immersed him in the study of Roman sculpture and classical Latin. Though Mantegna later claimed that Squarcione had exploited his lab...