Product Description

Pompeo Batoni (1708-1787) was the most celebrated painter in Rome in his day. For nearly half a century, he recorded the visits of international travellers on the Grand Tour, and these portraits remain among the most memorable artistic accomplishments of the period. His history, religious, and mythological paintings were also highly prized by great patrons and collectors in Britain and on the Continent. This book, published in celebration of the tercentenary of Batoni's birth, offers a vivid appreciation of his work. More than 150 full-colour illustrations represent the finest examples of his paintings from public and private collections in Europe and the United States. Some of these works are newly discovered and some have never before been on public display. A series of illuminating essays explores Batoni's art, his various patrons, his working methods and techniques, his final years, and his historiography and critical reception.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #182689 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

About the Author
Edgar Peters Bowron is Audrey Jones Beck Curator of European Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and a specialist in eighteenth-century Italian art. Peter Bjorn Kerber completed his doctoral thesis on Pompeo Batoni at the University of Munich.

Customer Reviews

Pompeo Batoni
This is a wonderful book for the Baroque and Rococo painting lover. The color reproductions are plentiful and there are no black and white plates. I would have liked to have seen more full page details, but it's a minor quibble for a great book at a great price.

very good book on Batoni
Batoni was leading painter in 18th century Rome. I waited for years for a good monograph on him. This book was not disappointment. The essays are well written and there are lot of good, large reproductions.
I'd recommend it to all fans of the period art (as well as the title "Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century" by Edgar Peters Bowron, a thicker book whose scope is much larger, as it deals with painting, drawing, sculpture an decorative art in Rome in those times.)

Painter of Princes but certainly no prince of painters...
This book is the catalogue for an exhibition held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and at the National Gallery in London, centered on an artist that embodies the fickleness of taste and fashion. He was the most sought-after painter of his time (the XVIIIth century), but after his death his fame and glory somewhat faded while people grew more and more attracted to the Renaissance artists whose works form the core of today's museums.

The book is divided into five chapters, tracing the artist's career, from his early religious pictures to his more famous portraits of his rich British patrons and European royalties, his mythological scenes and his drawings. The fifth chapter, focused on his drawings and working methods, is especially interesting and well-informed.

The one shortcoming is the absence of any clear checklist of the works, which makes it difficult to find a particular painting and also to understand which works are part of the exhibition and which are not.

However, dozens of high-quality illustrations (with close-ups of details) make this book a good addition to any fine arts library, even though it does not succeed in convincing me of the importance of Batoni in the history of art...