Hercules and the Lernean Hydra
Artist
Cornelis Cort
(Flemish, 1533– before 1578)
Artist
Frans Floris the Elder
(Flemish, about 1519–1570)
Publisher
Hieronymus Cock
(Flemish, about 1510–1570)
Date1563
Mediumengraving
Dimensionsplate: 22.4 x 28.4 cm (8 13/16 x 11 3/16 in.)
sheet: 23.6 x 29.6 cm (9 5/16 x 11 5/8 in.)
sheet: 23.6 x 29.6 cm (9 5/16 x 11 5/8 in.)
ClassificationsPrints
MarkingsRichard Jung's collector's mark in orange ink in l.l. on verso; Watermark: Dolphin (similar to Briquet 5845)
Credit LineAustin S. Garver Fund
Object number1998.61
DescriptionPlate 5Label TextFloris’s teacher and employer, Lambert Lombard, encouraged him to go to Rome, where he fell under the influence of Michelangelo. Back in Antwerp, he became the leading Romanist painter of his generation. This print reproduces one of Floris’s paintings of Hercules’s labors for the home of merchant Nicolaas Jongelinck. The hydra was a nine-headed monster so poisonous that even its tracks could kill. When Hercules cut off one of its heads, two more grew in its place. So he recruited his nephew Iolaus to cauterize each severed neck, and gradually prevailed.ProvenanceRichard Jung (1911-1986); Purchased from Lutz Riester, Freiburg, Germany
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