Scarab with Herakles Holding a Club and a Bow Set in a Swivel Ring

Description This scarab bears an image of the hero Herakles moving toward the left carved in intaglio. Herakles wears the skin of the Nemean lion pulled over his head. He holds a bow in his right hand and a club in his left, raised over his head and ready to strike. Gems were used as seals but also as jewelry and could reflect mythological figures as represented elsewhere in the arts, especially in sculpture.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
8/22/1960	Examination	other

Exhibitions

• Heroes: Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville; San Diego Museum Of Art, San Diego; Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA), New York. 2009-2011.

Provenance Hoffmann collection [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Charles Newton-Robinson, London, by 1909, [mode of acquisition unknown]; Charles Newton-Robinson sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 22 June 1909, lot 14; Dikran Kelekian, New York and Paris, 1909, by purchase; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1909, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters, 1909