Hercules Slaying Antaeus

The painting shows the mythical giant Antaeus, son of Gaia, goddess of the Earth, being crushed to death in the arms of Heracles.

It is assumed that both this and Hercules Slaying the Hydra are miniature copies by the artist of two out of the three enormous (some 12 feet square) paintings on canvas of the Labours of Hercules commissioned from Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo by Piero di Cosimo de' Medici for the Sala Grande of the Palazzo Medici in the 1460s, which have now been lost.

They were 6 braccia square or high—about 3.5 metres, on cloth, so with over-life size figures; Hercules and the Nemean lion was the third.

They were perhaps commissioned by Piero di Cosimo de' Medici rather than his father, and were on cloth, still relatively unusual in Florence at this date.

[3] In 1494, Antonio Pollaiulo wrote a letter from Rome, the city at the time in the grip of an outbreak of plague, asking to be allowed home to Tuscany and hoping the Medicis would consent to the request because – "34 years ago I made the Labours of Hercules which are in the hall of their palace, made by me and my brother.

Hercules found that each time he felled Antaeus, he got up again, renewed by contact with the earth – Gaia, his mother, refreshing him – so Hercules had to hold him off the ground while squeezing him to death
Hercules and Antaeus , Bargello