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Hercules, seated on a column, in a state of depression. Etching by F. Bartolozzi, 1781. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.
The engraving was commissioned by James Harris to represent a lost bronze statue of Hercules in a state of depression. The statue was seen and described by Nicetas in Byzantium but was destroyed in the sack of Constantinople at the end of the Fourth Crusade (1205). "The engraving which is placed at page 542 of the second volume was made from an impression in sulphur of a gem, which impression was given to Mr Harris by Mr Hoare of Bath. Its correspondence in most particulars with the figure of Hercules described by Nicetas, and mentioned in pages 306, 307, induced Mr Harris to imagine that it might possibly be some copy or memorial of that figure ..."--Harris op. cit. vol. 1, "To the reader". As described by Nicetas, Hercules rests his head on his left hand; contrary to Nicetas, Hercules here has his club
"The Hercules is exhibited to us, as if he were actually present -- immense in bulk, and, with an air of grandeur, reposing himself -- his lion's-skin (that lookt formidable even in brass) thrown over him -- himself sitting without a quiver, a bow, or a club, but having the right leg bent. at the knee; his head gently reclining on the hand of his left arm; and a countenance full of dejection, as if he were reflecting with indignation on the many successive labours, imposed on him by Eurystheus. For his person, we are informed he was ample in the chest; broad in the shoulders; had hair that curled; arms that were strong and muscular; and a magnitude such, as might be supposed to belong to the original Hercules; were he to revive; a leg.being equal in length to the stature of a common man. And yet adds Nicetas, filled with indignation, "this Hercules, being such as here represented, this very Hercules did not these men spare. I can only subjoin, by way of digression, that there is a fine Greek epigram describing the statue of a dejected Hercules, sitting without his weapons, which exactly resembles this of Nicetas, and which is said likewise to be the work of Lysippus, only there the poet imputes his hero's dejection, not to the tyranny of Eurystheus, but to the love of Omphale."--Harris op. cit. vol. 2, pp. 306-307
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