When Gustav III arrived in Florence in the autumn of 1783 he noted that there was only one important painter in Italy, Pompeo Batoni. Still, the king never bought any of the artist’s works. The reason was a lack of funds. This work by Batoni, in which he borrows a scene from Annibale Carracci’s famous fresco in Rome’s Palazzo Farnese, was added to the museum’s collection much later.