Style Napoleon III / Ref.10636

Bernard CAMPIGLI, Heracles as a child, sumptuous sculpture in Statuary marble, circa 1880

This sculpture was executed in Statuario Carrara marble around 1880 by Bernard Campigli, a sculptor who worked in the style of the 18^th century.

It depicts a child endowed with the attributes of the mythological demigod Hercules. He is draped with a lion skin, a reference to the Nemean lion’s pelt, rendered childlike to suit the figure. He also leans on a little club, a quintessential Herculean symbol.

The iconography of the child Hercules adopted here dates back to the 2^nd century BC. The choice of nudity and Carrara marble strengthens the sculptor’s expression of aligning himself with the direct lineage of Hellenistic statues, in a pronounced neoclassical vein.

It may echo the engraver Giovanni Domenico Campiglia, an artist active in Florence in the 16^th century, who executed a series of engravings of antiquities preserved in the Capitoline Museums in Rome, among which a young Hercules. However, the artist did not merely copy this statue, opting instead to create an original work, drawing on other engravings by Campiglia.

The finger the child raises to his mouth indeed refers to the engraving depicting Harpocrates, who holds his finger before his mouth, to forbid the revealing of the gods’ mysteries. Harpocrates, originally the Egyptian god Horus as a child, was associated with the mysteries of Dionysus in ancient Greece: hence his attributes include a cornucopia, as well as the nebris, the animal skin worn by the Bacchants in the retinue of Dionysus. The Hellenistic period, characterized by its syncretism, produced representations of Harpocrates with the attributes of Hercules, as seen in a statue preserved in the Antalya Archaeological Museum in Turkey. The author of our sculpture, aware of these syncretisms, likely drew inspiration from them.

The sculptor took advantage of the sumptuousness of Carrara marble, which allows for a particularly velvety rendering of the flesh, and subtle modeling highlighted by the whiteness of the marble. The animal skin, with very careful craftsmanship, contrasts with the smooth skin of the child. Finally, the child’s body faithfully represents that of a small child of three or four years old: the cheeks, the small nose, the slightly chubby legs and arms, all testify to a sensitive attention to childhood, highlighted in sculpture from the 18^th century onwards.