Herkules und Antäus

This little panel is barely larger than a hand, yet it once had a giant twin. In the 1460s the Medici commissioned Antonio del Pollaiuolo and his brother to paint three huge canvases of the labours of Hercules for their Florence palace, pictures so large they became famous across the city. Those originals are lost, and small versions like this one, made around 1475, are much of what tells us how they looked. Hercules has hauled the giant Antaeus off the ground, since the giant drew his strength from touching the earth, and crushes him in the air. Pollaiuolo, who was also a goldsmith and a sculptor, was gripped by this exact struggle, and he cast it again as a bronze that survives today in Florence.