About the Image:
Saint Andrew is the subject of a painting by Pompeo Batoni, an Italian painter of the 18th century. The painting is part of a series of religious paintings commissioned by Batoni's most important patron, Count Cesare Merenda of Forlì1. The painting is available as an art print, fine art reproduction, and canvas print34. The painting is displayed in various galleries, including The Art Institute of Chicago15. Saint Andrew is known as the patron saint of fishermen, singers, Scotland, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, and several other countries and cities23. He is venerated in all Christian denominations which venerate saints and is associated with several major shrines1.
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.
