Monumento ao Barão do Rio Branco, Porto Alegre

The Monument to the Baron of Rio Branco is a public monument erected in Praça da Alfândega, in the center of the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, in front of the Memorial of Rio Grande do Sul.

The initiative to erect a memorial to José Maria da Silva Paranhos Júnior, Baron of Rio Branco, Brazilian statesman of the Old Republic, arose from the commotion that was manifested in the country on the occasion of his death on February 10, 1912. There were several proposals in various parts of Brazil, and also abroad, to honor the eminent personage, and Porto Alegre was not indifferent to this movement. Thus, in March 1912, the Military Club of Officers of the National Guard met, and Colonel Ernesto Jaegger presented the idea of a monument, which should be raised with donations.

The sculptor João Vicente Friedrichs was asked to make a scale model, to serve as a model around which a competition would be organized to choose the best realization. Three projects by Dreschler & Filhos, two by João Vicente Friederichs, one by Jesús Maria Corona, and one by Pasqual de Chirico participated in the competition. The judging commission, formed by Manuel Itaqui, Sylvio Barbedo and Giuseppe Gaudenzi, gathered in December 1913, indicated the winner as one of the projects of Friedrichs' workshop, and a contract was signed on January 21, 1914, establishing as deadline for delivery November 15 of the same year.

The plaster models of the two figures, one of the Baron and the other symbolizing the Republic, were made by Alfred Adloff. Ready in May 1914, the two models were sent to a bronze foundry in Berlin. However, the mold of the Baron was able to reach its destination and be cast, being ready still in 1914 and arriving in Porto Alegre in February 1915, but the model of the Republic was held up from the beginning in the port of Santos, and finally, with the additional complications generated by the First World War that broke out in Europe, in May 1916 it was decided to cast it in Friedrichs' own atelier, in Porto Alegre. The inauguration finally took place on September 7, 1916.

The building rises on a square base of three steps, with a stone mosaic floor, with a granite pedestal for the statues. The one of the Republic, next to the base, is a woman in flowing robes, wearing a Phrygian barrette and a laurel wreath, who holds the national flag with her left hand and extends her right arm to the Baron, who is placed on the upper level, offering him another laurel wreath. He, in hieratic pose and wearing a coat, holds a pince-nez with his right hand and the Treaty of Missions with his left. On the four sides of the pedestal are commemorative plaques. The one in front bears the inscription of his title and a phrase of his: BARÃO DO RIO BRANCO - "Everywhere I remember the Homeland". The monument was vandalized and the statue of the Republic lost part of its right arm, and one of the plaques also disappeared.