Herm

Author: Surya Stemerding

This drawing is probably of a ‘Hercules herm’, a column topped with a half-length figure with the torso and head of an antique Hercules statue. Herms like this were very popular in classical antiquity and several have survived.^[1]

The surface of the fracture in the left arm suggests that the arm of the classical example may have been hollow and was therefore made of bronze. Similar classical herms, also with the right arm broken off, are quite often depicted as studies of or documentation for classical sculptures, as we see in a print by Agostino Veneziano (c.1490-1540) dated 1536.^[2] It also shows the pedestal tapering downwards that is only vaguely indicated in our drawing. The absence of the lion’s skin around his shoulders and the lion’s head on his head that cannot be identified as such raises some doubt as to whether the figure in the Rotterdam drawing should be described as Hercules.^[3] If it is indeed Hercules, the head in this case is of the Hercules Farnese/Lysippos type: bearded, frowning and turned towards the right shoulder.

Based on the inscription, the work was once regarded as the work of Polidoro da Caravaggio (c.1499-1543). According to Pouncey (1962), however, the drawing style is more in keeping with the work of Paolo Farinati (c.1524-1606).^[4] The remarkably short cross-hatching in the torso of the ‘herm’ figure is also found in a drawing by Farinati in Copenhagen. The combination with similarly hatched white highlights is comparable to drawings in Chicago and Paris.^[5] These similarities are not sufficient, however, to justify an attribution of the Rotterdam drawing to Farinati, but the style characteristics certainly point to a contemporary of Farinati, also from the Veronese school.