Hercules and Omphale

Inscriptions

Not signed.

Label

The objects on this table evoke an early modern collector’s home—perhaps a studiolo in the Italian peninsula or a cabinet or Kunstkammer north of the Alps. Between 1400 and 1750, Europeans lived with, and expressed themselves through, sculpture. Three-dimensional and tactile, sculpture was regularly handled and moved, and spaces for exhibition in the early modern home facilitated active engagement with these works.

The sculptures in this grouping relate to the 15th- and 16th-century interest in Humanism, a tradition of learning with roots in Greek and Roman sources that emphasizes agency and inquiry. Sculptures of classical subjects like Arion or biblical ones like Eve could serve as prompts for conversation and debate about morality, philosophy, and literature. In this way, collections offered social spaces that connected friends, scholars, and rivals.

From the 2024 exhibition Living with Sculpture: Presence and Power in Europe, 1400–1750, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art, and Ashley B. Offill, Curator of Collections

Course History

ARTH 27.02, Living Stone: Sculpture in Early Modern Italy, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub, Winter 2022

GOVT 86.43/MES 12.14, Intellectual History of Racism, Michelle Clarke and Jonathan Smolin, Spring 2022

History 42.01, Women's Gender, and Sexuality Studies 22.01, Gender & European Society, Patrick Meehan, Spring 2024

History 96.39, Saints and Relics, Cecilia Gaposchkin, Spring 2024

Italian 1.01, Introductory Italian I, Noemi Perego, Spring 2024

Italian 11.01, Intensive Italian, Floriana Ciniglia, Spring 2024

Italian 2.01, Introductory Italian II, Floriana Ciniglia, Spring 2024

Italian 3.01, Introductory Italian III, Tania Convertini, Spring 2024

Italian 3.02, Introductory Italian III, Giorgio Alberti, Spring 2024

Exhibition History

Carpenter Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 21, 1981.

Living with Sculpture: Presence and Power in Europe, 1400–1750, Citrin Family Gallery and Engles Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 23, 2024–March 22, 2025.

New Selections from the College Collection, Carpenter Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 23-June 30, 1979.

Provenance

Leon Albert Marantz, East Orange, New Jersey; given to present collection, 1977.

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Subject