THE TENTH MUSE

Angelica Kauffman was one of the most sought-after artists in 18th-century Europe. She cast aside convention to forge a remarkable career in London and Rome, not just as a portraitist, but also as a history painter, as Bettina Baumgärtel tells Lucia Marchini.

- Bettina Baumgartel

In a painting by Johan Zoffany, the founder-members of London’s Royal Academy of the Arts are grouped together, ready for some life drawing. Two nude models are in the room, surrounded by distinguished artists of the day. They are all men, but hanging on the wall above them are portraits of two women: Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffman. These absent women were the only female founders of the Academy. Both painted portraits of the great and the good; Moser’s accomplished floral still-lifes earned her a commission to decorate Frogmore House for the queen, while Kauffman became one of the most-renowned history painters of her time.

Kauffman, born in Chur, Switzerland, in 1741, was something of a child prodigy. Her mother Cleofea Lutz taught her singing and languages. Her father Johann Joseph Kauffman, court painter to the Prince-Bishop of Chur, trained her as an artist and also took her on tour to play the clavichord and sing in the princely courts of northern Italy. After her mother’s death in 1757, Kauffman gave up her singing career and dedicated herself to painting. She spent the early 1760s travelling in Italy, visiting Parma, Modena, Bologna, Florence, and Naples with letters of recommendation giving her access to major art collections. In the Medici Collection, Kauffman had to work away from other artists in a different room because of her sex. Still, she was able to draw from ancient sculpture, and studied and made copies of works by Italian Old Masters such as Raphael, Guido Reni, and Annibale Carracci, often to be sold to British collectors.