Hercules and the Centaurs: Hercules holds the head of a centaur with his left hand and raises his club with his right hand, in the foreground and background are fallen and fleeing centaurs, from the series 'The Labors of Hercules'
1608
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
sheet: 5 1/2 x 6 7/8 in. (13.9 x 17.5 cm) plate: 3 15/16 x 5 9/16 in. (10 x 14.1 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Phyllis Massar, 2011
Accession Number
2012.136.425.6
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the dynamic etching *Hercules and theaurs* (1608), Italian artist Antonio Tempesta captures pivotal moment from Greek mythology. Part of his renowned series *The Labors Hercules*, the print depicts the hero in fierce combat: with his left hand gripping a centaur's head and right raised to strike with a massive club, Hercules dominates the foreground. Fallen and fleeing centaurs scatter in chaos behind him, evoking the wild battle where Hercules aided the Lapiths against these half-man, half-horse beasts at a wedding feast gone awry. Tempesta, a Florentine master of the late Mannerist and e...
About the Artist
Antonio Tempesta · 1555–1630
Antonio Tempesta (1555–1630), known as 'Il Tempestino,' was a Florentine painter and printmaker whose extraordinary output of approximately 1,700 etchings made him one of the most influential printmakers of the early Baroque period. Born in Florence and trained under Santi di Tito and the Flemish master Joannes Stradanus, he enrolled in the Accademia del Disegno in 1576 before relocating to Rome i...