After Annibale Fontana (1540-87), Hercules and Achelous, bronze plaquette, on the left, Archelous as the river-god reclines beneath a tree and in the centre lies on the ground below Hercules who raises his club to strike him, 89.5 x 131.8mm, a very fine contemporary cast (some file marks on the reverse) The scene is after Annibale Fontana's engraved rock crystal plaque now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (32.100.238) and for another version of the same subject as a bronze plaquette with both combatants standing see Warren, Ashmolean, 274 (which is derived from the rock crystal in the Walter's Art Museum, Baltimore). Also in the MMA is a bronze plaquette of the Abduction of Deianira (60.55.65) from the same series of the Labours of Hercules as the present piece and the following lot.

Estimate: GBP 1500 - 2000