Pompeo Girolamo Batoni – Italian Artist 1708 to 1787
Batoni began his career in Lucca, working as a decorator and engraver of precious metals in the workshop of his father, an eminent goldsmith in his native town. Before he turned twenty, Batoni left for Rome, where he studied classical antiquity and produced copies after antique sculpture for the Grand Tourists. He became a highly respected history painter and celebrated portraitist, with paintings of a religious subject matter constituting only a fifth of his total output.
Information courtesy of Sotheby’s, January 2008.