Private commission for a villa on the Côte d'Azur; with Galerie Jean Louis Danant, Paris
Literature
François Baudot, Gilbert Poillerat Maître Ferronier, Paris, 1992, p.241 for a similar example
Catalogue Essay
Hercules, uncommon man, suffered common misfortune: he was a pawn of the gods. Hera, goddess of marriage, induced in Hercules a fit of rage as punishment for Zeus’s infidelity with the hero’s mother, Alcmenes. Under Hera’s spell, Hercules murdered his own wife, Megara, and their three children. As penance, the Oracle of Delphi prescribed Twelve Labours set by Eurystheus, the illegitimate king on Hercules’s rightful throne. Accompanied by Iolaus, his eremenos, Hercules discharged his tasks and restored his honour.
The glass top of the present table is in three sections. Poillerat depicted six of the Twelve Labours, listed below in their traditional order as determined by Peisandros of Rhodes in a now lost epic poem, circa 600 B.C.
Labour 1. Slay the Nemean Lion to steal its hide Labour 2. Slay the Lernaean Hydra Labour 6. Slay the Stymphalian Birds Labour 8. Steal the Mares of Diomedes Labour 11. Steal the Apples of the Hesperides, guarded by the dragon Ladon Labour 12. Capture Cerberus, guardian dog of Hades