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Overview
Like many northern artists from the 16th century onwards, Marten van Heemskerck travelled, in his case from Haarlem to Rome, where he stayed between 1532 and 1535. It was a time when wealthy collectors decorated their gardens with newly excavated fragments of Greek and Roman antiquities, many of which were in the process of restoration. Van Heemskerck carried out numerous studies of these sculptures, particularly those in the Palazzo della Valle, Case Maffei and Casa Galli, many of which are found in his sketchbooks, now in the Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings), Berlin. This page of studies also derives from that time. It was common practice for artists to cover a sheet of drawing paper which would later serve as models for a finished work. These drawings became highly collectible from the mid-16th century on, first by artists eager to learn from each other, and gradually by connoisseurs drawn to the freshness of preparatory drawings in which the process of immediate observation may be seen.
These figures, from a middle third century CE Roman antique frieze on a sarcophagus, are on the other side of Van Heemskerck's Sheet of studies after the Antique (1973-0002-1a), which in turn was inspired by the famous Niobe group sculptures (Uffizi Gallery, Florence). The frieze can be confidently identified as a detail from the Labours of Hercules sarcophagus, now in the Palazzo Altemps, National Museum of Rome, which came in turn from the Boncompagni-Ludovisi Collection (Inv. 8642). Van Heemskerck's drawing only depicts part of the frieze, but from left to right we can discern the hind quarters of the Nemean Lion, the Lernaean Hydra, the Erymanthian Boar, the Ceryneian Hind and finally Hercules aiming his bow at the Stymphalian birds.
See: Mary Kisler, 'Marten van Heemskerck 1498-1574', in William MacAloon (ed.), Art at Te Papa (Wellington: Te Papa Press, 2009), p. 30.
'Roman Sarcophagus News', http://www.montallen.com/roman-sarcophagus-news-blog/why-does-hercules-look-like-uncle-rufus (accessed 22 December 2016).
Mark Stocker, Curator Historical International Art December 2016
http://www.montallen.com/roman-sarcophagus-news-blog/why-does-hercules-look-like-uncle-rufus