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Portrait of a Woman at Her Toilet Angelica Kauffmann

Artist

Angelica Kauffmann Chur, 1741 – Rome, 1807

Culture Swiss
Date 1795
Object type painting
Medium, technique oil on canvas
Dimensions

131 × 103 cm

Signature

Signed and dated lower left: Angelica | Kauffman | Pinx: Romae | 1795

Inventory number 444
Collection Old Master Paintings
On view Museum of Fine Arts, Second Floor, European Art 1700-1850, Gallery XXIX

The model for Angelika Kauffmann’s painting is presumably a princess Esterházy, appearing in the painting as Venus. The portrait disguised as a mythological picture, or ‘portrait historie’, was a popular genre from the 17th century onwards. Here, the soft, smooth surfaces, the lush colours and the lightness of the painting evoke the spirit of the Rococo period, but the costume, the hairstyle and the graceful movement of the model – inspired by the ancient statue known as Aphrodite of Kallipygos, or Venus the Fair Bottom – are already evidence of the rise of Classicism. The painting is an excellent reflection of the painter’s exceptional sense of the genre, the freshness of his vision and his susceptibility to capturing all that is noble, refined and elegant.

References

Pigler, Andor, Katalog der Galerie Alter Meister, 1-2. Museum der Bildenden Künste, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest. 2, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1967, p. 348-349.

This record is subject to revision due to ongoing research.

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