Head of Herakles Refashioned as a Weight (300–200 BCE): Art, History and Details

Head of Herakles Refashioned as a Weight (300–200 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Even without his club or lion skin, the short curly hair and full curly beard identify this miniature head as that of Herakles. The eyes and mouth were likely once inlaid. His upward gaze suggests the head may be based on the Herakles Epitrapezios by Lysippos, the personal sculptor of Alexander the Great. The original Herakles Epitrapezios survives only through copies, including this one as well as a slightly later marble version also in Cleveland (among many others). This head was refashioned into a weight, probably in the Roman period, by filling it with lead and adding holes for a hook.

Object facts

• Title: Head of Herakles Refashioned as a Weight
• Date: 300–200 BCE
• Culture: Greece, Hellenistic period
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze filled with lead
• Dimensions: Overall: 9.5 cm (3 3/4 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1971.71

A detail from the museum

Romans filled their weights with lead because it was plentiful, cheap, and easy to shape.

Collection credit

Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1971.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 59, no. 1 (1972): 3–46.
• Uhlenbrock, Jaimee Pugliese. Herakles: Passage of the Hero Through 1000 Years of Classical Art. New Rochelle, N.Y.: A.D. Caratzas, 1986.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.