such motifs in reliefs for the New Town Hall in Amsterdam. The theme of the infant Hercules strangling snakes is recorded by Theocritus. Hercules was the son of Alcmena, a mortal woman, and Jupiter - one of the many occasions on which Jupiter was unfaithful to his wife, Juno. That is why Juno was hostile towards Hercules from birth and she sent poisonous snakes to kill the infant. Hercules’s courage and enormous strength enabled him to strangle the snakes, the earliest test of his heroic powers. The theme of the infant Hercules struggling with one or several serpents appears in classical art, but it also appears in the work of 17th century sculptors such as Ercole Ferrata. The inclusion of Jupiter as an eagle in the present marbleis, however, extremely rare and it is a significant addition to the previously known iconography of the subject. (7) Biographical Note: Jérôme Duquesnoy and his elder brother, François, probably received their early training from their father, Jérôme I Duquesnoy. The two brothers made their way to Rome in 1618. A disagreement en route led to their parting company and they did not meet up again for three years, when Jérôme eventually arrived in Rome. Through Jérôme’s letters to André Ghysels, a goldsmith from Brussels with whom he stayed in Tuscany for nine months, we know that Jérôme also visited Spain. Other sources also reveal that he spent a number of years in Spain and add that he visited Portugal. (8) Little is known about his works during this