Herkules und die Hydra

This panel is barely bigger than a postcard, about 17 by 12 centimetres, yet it carries a lot of history. In the 1460s the Pollaiuolo brothers painted three enormous canvases of the labours of Hercules for the great hall of the Medici palace in Florence. Those huge originals are long lost, and small versions like this one are the closest record we have of what they looked like. What Pollaiuolo was after is the body under strain. He had studied real anatomy closely, and you can read the effort in the twist of Hercules' torso and the braced legs as he swings his club at the many-headed water snake. The little painting has had its own adventures too. It vanished from Florence during the Second World War and turned up again in Los Angeles in 1963.