About the Image:
The Madonna and Child with Saints Joseph, Zacharias and Elisabeth and the Infant Saint John is a painting by Pompeo Batoni, created between 1738 and 17401. The painting depicts the Madonna holding the infant Jesus, with Saints Joseph, Zacharias, and Elisabeth, and the infant Saint John the Baptist surrounding them1. The painting is known for its delicate palette and is considered a masterpiece of Batoni's early period1.
About the Artist:
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni was an Italian painter who displayed a solid technical knowledge in his portrait work and in his numerous allegorical and mythological pictures. The high number of foreign visitors travelling throughout Italy and reaching Rome during their "Grand Tour" led the artist to specialize in portraits. Batoni won international fame largely thanks to his customers, mostly British of noble origin, whom he portrayed, often with famous Italian landscapes in the background. Such Grand Tour portraits by Batoni were in British private collections, thus ensuring the genre's popularity in Great Britain. One generation later, Sir Joshua Reynolds would take up this tradition and become the leading English portrait painter. Although Batoni was considered the best Italian painter of his time, contemporary chronicles mention his rivalry with Anton Raphael Mengs.
