A rare red jasper intaglio. Putti with Hercules' club.
18 x 23 x 4 mm
Five small erotes are in the act of raising a large club of Hercules: in the lower register, two putti laboriously support the club on the back or arms, while another directs it with both arms holding it in the terminal part; at the top, two other winged erotes pull with ropes (also in torsion). Short ground line for each character. Finely detailed carving executed with skill and well-marked engraved features. Attractive vivid red color of the stone, traversed horizontally by a natural black vein, to simulate the ground. Mirror polishing inside the intaglio. Interesting naturalistic rendering of the club. Slight wear marks. Generously sized setting. In the Paoletti cast impressions repertoire is described a gem very similar to this one, cited as "Cinque Genj di Ercole erigendo un Trofeo delle spoglie di quell'Eroe"", matrix in black glass, inv. n. MR 24666, from a carving in red jasper, Coll. Poniatowski. Impronte Cades 25, IIIA, 245 - Visconti II, 1829, pp. 228 n. 236. The here presented intaglio could constitute an unpublished variant of the Poniatowski intaglio, executed at the time in the same context. The model, however, must be identified with a valuable antique cameo from the Medici collection of Florence: cameo in onyx, "quattro amorini alati che tentano sollevare la clava d'Ercole ed uno senza ali che tuffa il capo nel cratere del medesimo. Dal lato sinistro vedesi appesa la pelle del leone, cui é sovrapposta una faretra di forma singolare", described in the inventories of 1676 until 1862. Attributed by ML Vollenweider at Tryphon, engraver of the circle of Sostratos. For comparisons. L.P.B. Stefanelli, La collezione Paoletti, vol. I, p. 73 n. 649; A. Giuiano, The Cameos of the Medici Collection in the Archaeological Museum of Florence, pp. 166-167 n. 50.
Late 18th- early 19th century.