Giovanni Baratta, Hercules and the Nemean lion, circa 1709, white marble Giovanni Baratta (Carrara 1670 - 1747) HERCULES AND THE NEMEAN LION c. 1709 white statuary marble sculpture, 185x90x80 cm Provenance Florence, Palazzo Ximenes-Panciatichi LIterature A. Bacchi, F. Freddolini, Giovanni Baratta. Due modelli fiorentini in terracotta, Milan 2010, p. 54 fig. 6, pp. 60-62; F. Freddolini, Giovanni Baratta 1670-1747. Sculpture and the Marble Industry between Tuscany and the Courts of Europe, Rome 2013, p. 188 n. 32 F. Freddolini in A. Bacchi (ed.), Collezione G&R Etro. Le terrecotte , Rome 2023, p. 214 A pupil of Giovan Battista Foggini in Florence, the young Giovanni Baratta applied himself not only to marble sculpture but also to the art of bronze sculpture thanks to the teachings of Massimiliano Soldani. However, his stay in Rome was decisive, where in 1691 he won the second prize in sculpture at the Accademia di San Luca with Camillo Rusconi, which had a decisive influence on his training. Returning to Florence in 1696, he worked mainly for church commissions, without, however, disdaining secular works. A date directly related to this work is 1709, the year in which King Frederick IV of Denmark, during his Grand Tour in Italy, visited Baratta's studio at the Zecca Vecchia and saw an almost completed marble group depicting Hercules and the Nemean lion, probably intended for a Florentine patron, which he bought to take with him to Copenhagen (still kept in the storerooms of the Scandinavian city's royal collections). This monumental marble group is believed to have been replicated at least two other times: one version is known to be currently at Waddesdon Manor in the UK, originally made for the Buonvisi family of Lucca, and the other presented here, historically undocumented in any way except for its Florentine provenance, although it is not known whether it was commissioned by the Ximenes or Panciatichi families or whether it entered the palace following a purchase on the antiques market. Attributed to Vittorio Barbieri by Mara Visona, who had appropriately noted the similarities with the Copenhagen statue, it seems rather to be related to the hand of Giovanni Baratta. In this regard, Francesco Freddolini wrote in 2013: "the coincidences with the monumental Danish marble group are in fact too strong to hypothesise an execution by another artist: the posture of Hercules, the numerous details repeated with meticulous precision, such as the fingers of the hands opening the lion's jaws (the fifth finger of the right hand placed under the lower lip, and the fourth and fifth of the left folded in front of the nostrils), as well as the execution of the hair, with the compact curls, punctuated by deep drill holes, and the wrinkles on the forehead frowning in exertion, which converge towards the centre according to a symmetrical schematic. The Florentine marble group is thus a replica of the Danish one, probably made in the period immediately following the first version. The commission of this sculpture occurred perhaps out of emulation, as the marble acquired had immediately become famous, or because it represents a second version of the work originally commissioned from the artist and never delivered to the client as it was acquired by Frederick IV'. Again according to Freddolini, "the marble in the Pratesi collection - although worn down by centuries of exposure to the ravages of time - still shows a very high quality of execution and in many passages, such as Hercules' face and especially the lion's mane and posture, it appears as a further reflection on the Danish Hercules. Although Giovanni Baratta's intervention on this sculptural group has been debated in recent years, it is precisely the quality of these passages that makes the authorship of the sculptor from Carrara emerge as increasingly certain, especially when comparing the work with the other known versions'.