MENGS, ANTON RAPHAEL (1728-1779)

"La Figlia di Raffael Mengs" (c.1800)
after Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779)
miniature painting
14 x 10cm
unsigned
*private collection, Sydney
.
This stunning miniature is a late 18th century, detailed, (& superior in many ways) Grand Tour copy of Meng's 1770 portrait of a young woman (probably his daughter), which used to hang in the Palazzo Corsini in Rome.

Son of a Danish painter, Mengs relocated to Rome from Dresden in the early 1740s, where he became Director of the Vatican Painting School, & noted portrait & fresco painter. On two occasions he accepted invitations from Charles III of Spain to go to Madrid. There he produced some of his best work, most notably the ceiling of the banqueting hall of the Royal Palace of Madrid, the subject of which was the Triumph of Trajan and the Temple of Glory. His most important works can be found in Dresden, St. Petersburg & Oxford. .Mengs represents an ideal based on ancient models rather than depicting an actual person. The pose was possibly influenced by the statue of the Head of Niobe in the Uffizi, Florence, in posture, proportion, facial expression, & similarities in the formation of the drapery. Mengs is known to have studied the sculpture in the original at length in 1770, & it is probable that his original portrait was painted during his stay in Florence in 1770-1. .The painting achieved some fame in the late nineteenth century due to a photograph in the Vatican Museum collection that described the painting as La Figlia di Raffael Mengs. A Trompe l'oeil by the late nineteenth-century Roman artist, Francesco Alegiani includes the photograph of the painting along with Guido Reni's iconic portrait of Beatrice Cenci.