Friday, August 22, 2008

Hercules Battling Hydra on Tapestry

Paul of BibliOdyssey sent me this link the other week. Neither of us know any details about the work, other than the source material. I've previously found an engraving of the same image by Dutch artist Cornelis Cort from 1565.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The artist is Frans Floris, the engraver Cornelis Cort. I have an article about this Hercules series in a Burlington magazine from March 1965.
The paintings by Floris are lost, there were ten paintings.
(As there are 12 Labours of Hercules two pictures have an extra labour each).
The tapestries were woven in 1567 in the workshop of Michiel De Bos, for Albert V of Bavaria.

Anonymous said...

P.S. ...also in the Burlington article, the paintings by Frans Floris were about six and a half foot high by seven and a half foot long, they were last seen in 1768 when they were cleaned, varnished and offered for sale.
Paul Rumsey.