Miniature replica of the Farnese Hercules

This small but intricate ivory carving reproduces (on a reduced scale) the famed Farnese Hercules, an early third century marble copy of a Greek sculpture made in the fourth century B.C. It was discovered in Rome in the sixteenth century and today is in the collection of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples. The ivory carving is of a high quality and done by an expert hand, whose identity is currently unknown. It may date to the seventeenth or eighteenth century and was likely a Grand Tour souvenir that would have been brought back from travels around Italy to be displayed in a library or study to demonstrate a nobleman’s worldliness and knowledge of classical art.