
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni Painting Reproductions Gallery 2 of 3
1708-1787Italian Rococo Painter
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni was born in Lucca, the son of a goldsmith.
He established himself in Rome in 1727 or 1728 to study the ancien sculpture. A pupil of Sebastiano Conca, he was however described as mainly a self-taught. His first works being mainly copies of works by Raphael and Annibale Carracci. In the early 1740s, however, he started to receive more prestige commissions, including the famous Fall of Simon Magus for the St. Peter's Basilica (now in Santa Maria degli Angeli). The Ecstasis of St. Catherine of Siena, now in the National Museum of Lucca, is from 1743.
Batoni became the most fashionable painter in the city, particularly after his most serious rival - Anton Raphael Mengs - departed for Spain in 1761. Batoni befriended Winckelmann and, like him, preferred Raphael and Poussin to the Venetian artists then in vogue.
His studio was frequented by foreigners, especially Britons, who would commission standing portraits in the milieu of antiquities, ruins, and objets d'art. Such "Grand Tourist" portraits by Batoni came to proliferate in the British private collections, thus ensuring the genre's popularity in the United Kingdom, where Sir Joshua Reynolds would become its leading practitioner.
In 1769 the double portrait of Joseph II and Leopold II won an Austrian nobility for Batoni. He also portrayed Pope Pius VI. According to a legend, he bequeathed his palette and brushes to Jacques-Louis David.
He died in Rome in 1787.
61 Paintings of Pompeo Batoni
Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna Austria
Kaiser Joseph II and the Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany
$1419
Art Institute of Chicago Illinois USA
Don Jose Monino y Redondo, Conde de Floridablanca
$989
$53.06
Detroit Institute of Arts Michigan USA
Samson and Delilah
$1482
The State Hermitage Museum St. Petersburg Russia
Allegory of Voluptuousness
$1155
The State Hermitage Museum St. Petersburg Russia
Holy Family with Sts Elizabeth and John the Baptist
$1635
The State Hermitage Museum St. Petersburg Russia
Thetis Takes Achilles from the Centaur Chiron
$1659
The State Hermitage Museum St. Petersburg Russia
Hercules at the Crossroads
$1465
The State Hermitage Museum St. Petersburg Russia
Mercury Crowning Philosophy, 'Mother' of the Arts
$1554
Metropolitan Museum of Art New York USA
Diana and Cupid
$986
Private Collection
Sir Edward Dering, 6th Baronet
$1162
Musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal Quebec Canada
Peace and Justice
$1093
Private Collection
The Death of Meleager
$1156
Museum of Fine Arts Houston USA
The Marchioness of Headfort Holding her Daughter Mary
$910
$60.46
Boston Museum of Fine Arts Massachusetts USA
The Crucifixion
$941
National Galleries of Scotland Edinburgh United Kingdom
James Bruce of Kinnaird, African Explorer
$727
$59.80
National Gallery London United Kingdom
Portrait of Richard Milles
$1141
National Gallery London United Kingdom
Time Orders Old Age to Destroy Beauty
$1221
Dallas Museum of Art Texas USA
Portrait of a Man in a Green Suit
$871
Philadelphia Museum of Art Pennsylvania USA
Esther Before Ahasuerus
$1555
Prado Museum Madrid Spain
Francis Basset, I Baron of Dunstanville
$1421
Louvre Museum Paris France
Apollo and Two Muses
$1196
$53.86
Private Collection
Portrait of Prince Abbondio Rezzonico
$2143
Private Collection
Lady Mary Fox, Baroness Holland
$911
Private Collection
Lord Brudenell, later Marquis of Monthermer
$941