Marco Antonio Prestinari, “Hercules and the Nemean Lion”, Date Unknown, Terracotta, Height 52 cm.

Marco Antonio Prestinari was born in Claino, a village in the Valsolda close to Porlezza, His first recorded works for the garden and nymphaeum of Pirro Visconti’s villa at Lainate, near Milan, are the marble statues of the “Nymph” in the centre of the large grotto in the nymphaeum,, and the “Adonis” originally in the same nymphaeum, but now located in the Louvre Museum. These statues can in all likelihood be dated to the mid 1590s.

The terracotta “Hercules and the Nemean Lion” is a preparatory model for a monumental sculpture in ceppo stone of the “Teatro d’Ercole” of the garden of Villa Arconati at Castellazzo di Bollate, near Milan.

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