POMPEO BATONI (1708-1787) Count Niccoló Soderini (1765) Oil on canvas (134 x 97 cm) Palazzo Barberini, Rome To enlarge the picture, click on it and "Open in a new tab" If Batoni needed to prove that, besides being a superb colourist, he was also a master in the difficult art of reproducing the texture of …
Tag: 18th century italian painting
Off the Cuffe
POMPEO BATONI (1708-1787) Captain Otway Cuffe, 3rd Baron Desart (1769) Oil on canvas (134 x 96 cm) Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, Winchester, Virginia, USA To enlarge the picture, click on it and open it in a new tab Otway Cuffe (1737-1804) was the second son of John Cuffe, 1st Baron Desart, by his second …
A Sad Affair
POMPEO BATONI (1708-1787) The Barrett-Lennard Family (1750) Oil on canvas (39 x 53 cm) Essex Record Office, Chelmsford, UK To enlarge the picture, click on it and "Open in a new window" This beautiful family portrait had a sad origin. Thomas Barrett-Lennard, 17th Baron Dacre (1717-1786) was the son of Richard Barrett and Anne Lennard, …
The Duke of Grafton
POMPEO BATONI (1708-1787) Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (1762) Oil on canvas (76 x 61 cm) National Portrait Gallery, London Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (1735-1811), styled Earl of Euston between 1747 and 1757, was a British Whig statesman of the Georgian era. He was one of the very few dukes …
Allegory of the Arts
POMPEO BATONI (1708-1787) Allegory of the Arts (1740) Oil on canvas (175 x 138 cm) Frankfurt, Städelisches Museum To enlarge the picture, right-click on it and “Open in a new tab” In 1740, Pompeo Batoni began to work on a large canvas that was commissioned by a Florentine nobleman, the Marquess Vincenzo Riccardi. The subject …
Peace and War
POMPEO BATONI (1708-1787) Allegory of Peace and War (1776) Oil on canvas (136 x 99 cm) The Art Institute of Chicago, USA To enlarge the picture, right-click on it and “Open in a new tab” In 1998 the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) acquired one of Pompeo Batoni´s most beautiful allegorical paintings. The picture was …
John Monson of Burton
POMPEO BATONI (1707-1787) John, 3rd Baron Monson of Burton (1775) Oil on canvas: 249 x 175 cm Private collection To enlarge the picture, right-click on it and open it in a new tab. The only claim to fame this handsome and very elegant young gentleman would have had was to have been portrayed by Pompeo …
A gentleman in red
POMPEO BATONI (1708-1787) A gentleman in a red coat (1758-60) Private collection Oil on canvas (99 x 74 cm) (To enlarge the picture, right click on it and chose "Open in a new window") Pompeo Batoni, one of the finest portrait painters in European history, is beginning to emerge from the darkness to which he …
The Noble Musician
POMPEO BATONI (1708-1787) John Montagu, Marquess of Monthermer (1758) Oil on canvas (96.5 x 71 cm) The Duke of Buccleuch (To enlarge the picture, right-click on it and choose "Open in a new tab") In my previous post, The Marquess of Monthermer, I mentioned that the young Lord Brudenell commissioned portraits from Batoni and Mengs. …
The Glory of the Virgin
SEBASTIANO RICCI (1659-1734) The Virgin in Glory with the Archangel Gabriel and Saints Eusebius, Roch and Sebastian (1724-25) Oil on canvas (113 x 63 cm) Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles To enlarge the image, right-click on it and the "Open in a new tab" The text that follows was written by the …
Old Masters 