Angelica Maria Anna Katarina Kauffman was born in Chur, Switzerland, in 1747 into the family of the painter J.-J. Kauffman, who provided her with professional training in arts. In 1742-1757, the family lived in Italy, after 1757 they moved to Schwarzberg (now Austria). In 1763, she came to Rome for the first time. During the next years, 1763-65, she traveled to Milan, Venice, Naples and Florence. In 1765, she became a member of the St. Lucas Academy in Rome.

In 1766 she accompanied Lady Wentworth to England. There, Kauffman was a success with her portraits of the nobility. Under the influence of English sentimental literature she executed paintings on subjects from A. Pope and L. Sterne. She lived in London until 1781 and became the only woman in England to be admitted to the Royal Academy. In 1781, she married Antonio Zucchi (1726-95), a Venetian painter, who worked with the brothers Robert and James Adam in England. On her return to Rome in 1781, she was elected a member of the Venetian Academy. From 1781 till 1807 she lived and worked in Rome.

Kauffman was very popular in her time, she painted allegorical, mythological and historical subjects, as well as subjects from literature and portraits. They are mostly treated in the sentimental fashion of the 18th century. In the paintings of her early Roman period drawing prevails over coloring, which shows her interest in Mengs and aesthetic ideas of neoclassicism. In later works on mythological subjects the archeological accuracy of details was strengthened and theatrical effects appeared. Works of Kauffman were widely known in Europe due to engravings by other artists. She was a friend of the painter A. R. Mengs, great German poet and statesman W. Goethe, archeologist and art critic J. J. Winckelmann, and many other outstanding people of her time.

Werken:

Hector Calls Paris to the Battle.

1775. Oil on canvas, 137 x 178 cm.

The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

Self-Portrait.

c. 1780-85. Oil on canvas, 76.5 x 63 cm.

The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia.

The Farewell of Abelard and Héloïse.

1780. Oil on canvas, 65.6 x 65.5 cm.

The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

Abelard, Peter (1079-1142), a native of Brittany, scholastic philosopher and preacher. In 1113, he opened in Paris school, which became widely known. His theological views were declared heretical by the Council of Sens (1142) where he was vigorously opposed by St. Bernard.

His love for Héloïse (Eloise) served as grounds for his persecution. Eloise was the niece of Fulbert, a canon of Notre Dame in whose house he boarded; she was a woman of learning and Abelard’s pupil. Their love ended in a tragic separation. Eloise had to go into a monastery of Argenteuil, and Abelard to the Abbey of Sen Deni (1119). Thus started their famous correspondence and his love poems. Later, he wrote the autobiography Story of my Sorrows. In 1717, the English poet Alexander Pope’s (1688-1744) published his poem ‘Eloisa to Abelard’, which Kauffman used for her painting.

Self-Portrait.

1787. Oil on canvas. 128 x 93.5 cm.

Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy

Portrait of Countess A. S. Protasova with Her Nieces.

1788. Oil on canvas, 123 x 159 cm.

The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

Self-Portrait Hesitating Between the Arts of Music and Painting.

1791. Oil on canvas. 147 x 216 cm.

Private collection

Portrait of a Woman (Presumably of Duchess Esterhazi).

1795.

Oil on canvas. 131 x 103 cm.

Szepmuveseti Muzeum, Budapest, Hungary

Portrait of a Young Woman as a Sibyl.

Oil on canvas. 89 x 72 cm.

The Dresden Gallery, Dresden, Germany

Insane Mary.

Oil on canvas, 65.5 x 65.5 cm.

The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

Insane Mary, the subject for the picture is taken from A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768, part II, ch. 17) by Lawrence Sterne. During his journeys, the main character, Yorick, meets insane Mary, who had got mad because of unhappy love, and speaks to her.

Virgil Reading Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia.

Oil on canvas, 123 x 159 cm.

The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

Virgil Reading Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia. Virgil (70 –19 BC), the favorite poet of the Roman Emperor Augustus, the author of the epic poem Aeneid, which recounts the adventures of the Trojan Aeneas after the fall of Troy. During the reading of the poem to Augustus and his sister Octavia, the latter on hearing the lines devoted to her passed away son Marcellus, lost her conscience. On Kauffman’s painting Virgil holds the scroll with the lines from the poem Tu Marcellus eris…

Venus Persuades Helen to Fall in Love with Paris.

Oil on canvas, 102 x 127.5 cm.

The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

David Garrick

1764

Oil on canvas  - 84 x 69 cm

Burghley House, Stamford.

In an unusual and disarming approach, Kauffmann has captured the private, sensitive side of the great actor David Garrick’s personality. The way in which Garrick turns around in his chair to look at the viewer is touching and intimate; he was more often shown in a highly dramatic pose, as if he were standing on stage. 

Born in Switzerland, Kauffmann began painting portraits of Italian notables at the age of 11, and was persuaded by Sir Joshua Reynolds to go to London. She soon became famous for her Classical and mythological pictures, and for her portraits. In the 1770s she was commissioned to do murals for houses built by the designer Robert Adam and his brothers, whose soft colours and Antique style were well suited to her work.

Many engravings were made of these Classically inspired, idyllic scenes which were used in the manufacture of objects d’art, their popularity made her name famous.