Italian Rococo Era Painter, 1708-1787 He was born in Lucca, the son of a goldsmith, Paolino Batoni. He moved to Rome in 1727, and apprenticed with Agostino Masucci, Sebastiano Conca and/or Francesco Imperiale (1679-1740). By the early 1740s, however, he started to receive independent commissions. In 1741, he was inducted into the Accademia di San Luca. His celebrated painting, The Ecstasy of Saint Catherine of Siena (1743) illustrates his academic refinement of the late-Baroque style. Another masterpiece, his Fall of Simon Magus was painted initially for the St Peter's Basilica. Batoni became a highly-fashionable painter in Rome, particularly after his rival, the proto-neoclassicist Anton Raphael Mengs, departed for Spain in 1761. Batoni befriended Winckelmann and, like him, aimed in his painting to the restrained classicism of painters from earlier centuries, such as Raphael and Poussin, rather than to the work of the Venetian artists then in vogue. He was greatly in demand for portraits, particularly by the British traveling through Rome , who took pleasure in commissioning standing portraits set in the milieu of antiquities, ruins, and works of art. There are records of over 200 portraits by Batoni of visiting British patrons . Such "Grand Tour" 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 1760, the painter Benjamin West, while visiting Rome would complain that Italian artists "talked of nothing, looked at nothing but the works of Pompeo Batoni". 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 rumor, he bequeathed his palette and brushes to Jacques-Louis David.  Related Paintings of BATONI, Pompeo :. | Gleichnis vom verlorenen Sohn | Achilles at the Court of Lycomedes | Sensuality dhg | Diana Cupid | Portrait of Princess Giacinta Orsini Buoncampagni Ludovisi |
Related Artists:
George Elgar Hicks
1824-1914 British George Elgar Hicks Gallery Born on March 13, 1824 in Lymington, Hampshire, George Elgar Hicks was the second son of a wealthy magistrate. His parents encouraged Hicks to become a doctor and so Hicks studied medicine at University College from 1840-42. However, after three years "ardous and disagreeable study" Hicks decided he wanted to be an artist. Due to this, Hicks began training as an artist considerably later in life than most artists of the time. In 1843, Hicks attended Sass's Academy and by 1844 had entered the Royal Academy Schools. In 1847 Hicks married Maria Hariss and six of their eight children were born in the seven years following. He did not achieve much success as an artist during this period and later referred to his art at this time as "small and unimportant." He blamed this on the fact he had little time to study art or interact with other artists, due to his busy family life. In 1859, Hicks painted his first large genre painting, Dividend Day. Bank of England (exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1859) following the success of Frith's paintings Ramsgate Sands and Derby Day at the Royal Academy. It was a typical genre painting, showing a scene from the Bank of England and featuring a broad range of social classes. Hicks painted several more large modern life paintings in the following years which were generally poorly reviewed by critics. These include The General Post Office. One minute to 6 (1860), Billingsgate Fish Market (1861) and Changing Homes (1862). Hicks paintings were often of subjects that no other artists attempted, such as the General Post Office and Billingsgate Fish Market. Hicks was one of the few artists that showed lasting interest in the emulation of Frith's style and is generally considered Frith's principal imitator. By the late 1860s, the popularity of genre painting had waivered and Hicks began to focus on painting historical subjects, leading to society portraiture in the 1870s. In 1884, Hicks remarried following the death of Maria in 1881. He retired in the 1890s and died a month before the declaration of World War I in 1914.
Master of the Louvre Nativity
active in Florence in the Second half of the fifteenth century
Edward Henry Potthast Prints
American Impressionist Painter, 1857-1927 Edward Henry Potthast (1857 ?C 1927) was an American Impressionist painter. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. From June 10, 1879 to March 9, 1881 he studied with Thomas Satterwhite Noble. He later studied at the Royal Academy in Munich with the American-born instructor Carl Marr. After returning to Cincinnati in 1885 he resumed his studies with Noble. In 1886 he departed for Paris, where he studied with Fernand Cormon. In 1895 he relocated to New York City and remained there until his death in 1927.