The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 14, 2025

Hercules and Telephos

1592

Hendrick Goltzius

(Dutch, 1558–1617)
Netherlands, 16th century
engraving
Platemark: 40.4 x 29.4 cm (15 7/8 x 11 9/16 in.); Sheet: 41.8 x 30.1 cm (16 7/16 x 11 7/8 in.)
Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2022.138
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

The 2nd-century Hercules Telephos was unearthed in the Campo de’Fiori in Rome and was on view at the Belvedere Courtyard of the Vatican by the time Hendrick Goltzius visited the city.

Description

Hendrick Goltzius was one of many late Renaissance artists who felt compelled to travel to Italy as part of his artistic training. He went with one purpose—to study antique sculpture. Goltzius made drawings on-site and then made engravings after his designs once he returned to Haarlem in 1591. He portrayed the Hercules Telephos from a low viewpoint to capture the awesome experience of first encountering the famous monument. It stands within a shadowed niche, which Goltzius filled with thousands of crossed engraved lines to create a dramatic recess that pushes the sculpture into the light. The engraving shows to excellent advantage the virtuosic technique that Goltzius developed, in which the swelling and tapering line exaggerates the heroic musculature of the figure.
  • Samuel Solomonovitsch Scheikevitch, Moscow
    Private Collection, Europe
    June 27, 1989
    (Sotheby's, London, England), Lot 29
    Private Collection, United States of America
    ?-2022
    (C.G. Boerner, LLC, New York, NY), sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    December 5, 2022-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Goltzius, Hendrik, and Walter L. Strauss. Hendrik Goltzius, 1558-1617: The Complete Engravings and Woodcuts. New York: Abaris Books, 1977. 312–14
  • {{cite web|title=Hercules and Telephos|url=false|author=Hendrick Goltzius|year=1592|access-date=14 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2022.138