Carlo Maratti

This double-sided sheet contains multiple sketches for a composition depicting one of the labors of the Greek hero Hercules. The artist sketched in chalk on one side before blocking out the main elements of the composition with a brush dipped in ink. Turning the sheet over, he then repeated these same elements-Victory holding a crown, Hercules carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders-as he continued to search for postural variants and alternatives. Maratti’s fluid, tangled, impatient lines attest to the vivacity and speed of his process of invention.

Maratti depicts an episode from Hercules’s eleventh labor, in which Hercules stole three golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides (the daughters of Night). Hercules enlisted the help of the Titan Atlas, who was charged with keeping the heavens and earth separate for all eternity. Hercules persuaded Atlas to retrieve the apples for him only after agreeing to bear the weight of the heavens temporarily. Maratti shows three women saddling Hercules with the heavens, represented by clouds, while the globe rests at his feet. The firmament on his back provides the platform for three allegorical figures above, Victory, Honor, and Fame, who represent Hercules Victorious. This and a related drawing at the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, served as designs for an octagonal ceiling at the Villa Visconti, Rome, now destroyed.