Batoni Pompeo-Girolamo

Born on 25 June 1708: Pompeo-Girolamo Batoni (or Battoni), Italian Rococo era painter who died on 04 February 1787; specialized in portraits. In his day he was the most celebrated painter in Rome and one of the most famous in Europe. For nearly half a century he recorded the visits to Rome of international travelers on the Grand Tour in portraits that remain among the most memorable artistic accomplishments of the period. He was equally gifted as a history painter, and his religious and mythological paintings were sought after by the greatest princes of Europe.

He was the last great Italian personality in the history of painting at Rome. He carried out prestigious church commissions and painted numerous fine mythological canvases, many for eminent foreign patrons, but he is famous above all as a portraitist. After Mengs left Rome for Madrid in 1761 his preeminence in this field was unchallenged, and he was particularly favored by foreign visitors making the Grand Tour (an extensive journey to the Continent), whom he often portrayed in an antique setting. His style was a polished and learned distillation from the antique, the works of Raphael, academic French painting, the teaching of his master Sebastiano Conca. His characterization is not profound, but it is usually vivid, he presented his sitters with dignity. Batoni was also an outstanding draftsman, his drawings after the antique being particularly memorable. He was curator of the papal collections and his house was a social, intellectual and artistic center, Winckelmann being among his friends.