In the Palm House Pond in Kew Gardens stands the statue of an athlete struggling with a serpent. It is the sculpture ‘Hercules fighting Achelous’, created by Francis Joseph Bosio. It was made for King George IV in 1826 and formerly stood on the East Terrace of Windsor Castle. It came to Kew in 1963.
There is a similar sculpture by Bosio, ‘Hercules Battling Achelous Metamorphised into a Serpent’ created in 1824 and now located in The Louvre gallery, Paris.
The sculpture is based upon a story in Ovid's Metamorphoses in which Achelous, the deity of the Achelous River, the largest river of Greece, was Heracles's rival suitor for the love of Deïaneira, daughter of Oeneus king of Calydon. Acehlous transformed into a serpent to battle with Heracles, but he loses.
Baron François Joseph Bosio was a French sculptor who first studied in Paris with the sculptor Augustin Pajou. He worked for both emperor and kings of France as the ablest sculptor in Paris at the time. He worked as a portrait sculptor to Emperor Napoleon I, producing busts of the Empress Josephine and in 1810 of Queen Consort Hortense of Holland, Napolean’s step-daughter. He continued to produce sculptures for Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Napoleon III
Bosio also sculpted the horses on the top of the Arc de Triumphe du Carrosel to commemorate the restoration of the Bourbons to power.
It is such a wonderful sight in the middle of the fountain with a backdrop of the glorious Palm House.
