Antique Porcelain & Fine Arts

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Faience Hercules Figurine

This is a fun faience figurine of Hercules wwearing a lions pelt with a lion by his feet made by one of the French faience makers in the 18th century. Possibly St. Clement , Luneville or Hannong but I really don't know for sure. Interesting that he is depicted wearing a lion skin with another lion by his feet. Most say the lion skin he wore was the one from the one he killed in the famous story but I guess there is a debate that he also killed a lion as a young man and that is the skin he wore. No idea but learned something new again. Plus the lion by his feet seems rather tame :) Either way it is a very well modeled and painted figure with the club in his hand, a blue cloth over his back on a square base with some green and black to it. The piece is in good condition with some chips to the colored glaze, one ear on the lion skin is missing, the club was broken and reglued and the front right hand corner of the base was broken quite a long time ago and fixed with damage to the lion's tail with parts missing and Hercules' right foot was repaired. That could all be done much better nowadays but it is a neat figurine and displays fine as is. The lions left front paw is missing its toes but that looks to be original to the making! The figure is not marked which makes it hard to attribute perfectly and it is out of my area of expertise for sure. The figurine is just under 9 inches tall, 4 inches wide and 3.125 inches deep. Please email me for more information or other pictures.

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