Lysipps Statuen des Herakles

Abstract

The focus of this paper is the appraisal of statue types of the same subject matter and also of very similar form. It shows that the Antalya-Borghese Hercules, a statue type of the resting Hercules not recognized as a discrete type, is not to be identified as a Roman version of the colossal Farnese Hercules, but as its precursor. On this basis it is plausibly proposed for the first time that a Greek bronze caster, very probably Lysippus, rendered a particular subject first in a ›manageable‹ size and then returned to it some years later, rescaling it in a colossal format. The procedure described is not surprising in itself, although it has not yet been verifiably detected in Greek sculpture.