ATTRIBUTED TO FRANCESCO FANELLI (1577- AFTER 1641), ANGLO-ITALIAN, 17TH CENTURY | INFANT HERCULES STRANGLING TWO SERPENTS

The present model is known in a number of different casts of varying quality and detail, including examples in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam. It is now firmly attributed to Francesco Fanelli, based in part on its close similarity to one of the fountain designs (illustrated by Avery, op. cit.) that is included in Fanelli's book of engravings, the Varie Architecture. The present cast is very close to that in the Ashmolean Museum, while the version in Rotterdam and one sold in these rooms on 6 July 2007 (lot 104) represent a slight variant of the model, with a more prominent inclination of the head.

RELATED LITERATURE

E. van Binnebeke, Bronze sculpture. Sculpture 1500-1800 in the collection of the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, 1994, pp. 132-33, no. 38; V. Avery and J. Dillon, Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 2002, pp. 168-171, no. 23