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Maria Anna Angelica Kauffmann (October 30, 1741
– November 5, 1807) was a Swiss painter.

She was born at Chur in Graubünden. Her father,
Johann Josef Kauffmann, was a poor man and
mediocre painter, but apparently very successful
in teaching his precocious daughter. She rapidly
acquired several languages, read incessantly, and
showed marked talents as a musician. Her greatest
progress, however, was in painting; and in her
twelfth year she had become a notability, with
bishops and nobles for her sitters. In 1754 her
father took her to Milan. Later visits to Italy of
long duration followed: in 1763 she visited Rome,
returning again in 1764. From Rome she passed to
Bologna and Venice, being everywhere feted and
caressed, as much for her talents as for her
personal charms.

Writing from Rome in August 1764 to his friend
Franke, Winckelmann refers to her exceptional
popularity. She was then painting his picture, a
half-length, of which she also made an etching.
She spoke Italian as well as German, he says; and
she also expressed herself with facility in French
and English, one result of the last-named
accomplishment being that she painted all the
English visitors to the Eternal City. "She may be
styled beautiful," he adds, "and in singing may
vie with our best virtuosi." While at Venice, she
was induced by Lady Wentworth, the wife of the
English ambassador to accompany her to London,
where she appeared in 1766. One of her first works
was a portrait of David Garrick, exhibited in the
year of her arrival at "Mr Moreing's great room in
Maiden Lane." The rank of Lady Wentworth opened
society to her, and she was everywhere well
received, the royal family especially showing her
great favour.

Her firmest friend, however, was Sir Joshua
Reynolds. In his pocket-book, her name as "Miss
Angelica" or "Miss Angel" appears frequently, and
in 1766 he painted her, a compliment which she
returned by her "Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds".
Another instance of her intimacy with Reynolds is
to be found in her variation of Guercino's "Et in
Arcadia ego", a subject which Reynolds repeated a
few years later in his portrait of Mrs Bouverie
and Mrs Crewe.

When, in about November 1767, she was entrapped
into a clandestine marriage with an adventurer who
passed for a Swedish count (the Count de Horn),
Reynolds befriended her, and it was doubtless
owing to his good offices that her name is found
among the signatories to the famous petition to
the king for the establishment of the Royal
Academy. In its first catalogue of 1769 she
appears with "R.A." after her name (an honour she
shared with one other lady, Mary Moser); and she
contributed the "Interview of Hector and
Andromache", and three other classical
compositions.

Her friendship with Reynolds was criticised in
1775 by fellow Academician Nathaniel Hone in his
satirical picture "The Conjurer". This attacked
the fashion for Italian Renaissance art, ridiculed
Reynolds, and included a nude caricature of
Kauffmann, later painted out by Hone. The work was
rejected by the Royal Academy. 

From 1769 until 1782, she was an annual exhibitor,
sending sometimes as many as seven pictures,
generally classic or allegorical subjects. One of
the most notable was "Leonardo expiring in the
Arms of Francis the First" 1778. In 1773 she was
appointed by the Academy with others to decorate
St Paul's Cathedral, and it was she who, with
Biagio Rebecca, painted the Academy's old lecture
room at Somerset House.

It is probable that her popularity declined a
little in consequence of her unfortunate marriage;
but in 1781, after her first husband's death (she
had been long separated from him), she married
Antonio Zucchi (1728–1795), a Venetian
artist then resident in England. Shortly
afterwards she retired to Rome, where she lived
for 25 years with much of her old prestige. In
1782 she lost her father; and in 1795 (the year in
which she painted the picture of Lady Hamilton)
her husband. She continued at intervals to
contribute to the Academy, her last exhibit being
in 1797. After this she produced little, and in
1807 she died in Rome, being honoured by a
splendid funeral under the direction of Canova.
The entire Academy of St Luke, with numerous
ecclesiastics and virtuosi, followed her to her
tomb in S. Andrea delle Fratte, and, as at the
burial of Raphael, two of her best pictures were
carried in procession.

The works of Angelica Kauffmann have not retained
their reputation. She had a certain gift of grace,
and considerable skill in composition. But her
figures lack variety and expression; and her men
are masculine women. Her colouring, however, is
fairly enough defined by Gustav Friedrich Waagen's
term "cheerful". As of 1911, rooms decorated by
her brush were still to be seen in various
quarters. At Hampton Court was a portrait of the
duchess of Brunswick; in the National Portrait
Gallery, a self-portrait. There were other
pictures by her at Paris, at Dresden, in the
Hermitage Museum|Hermitage at St Petersburg, and
in the Alte Pinakothek at Munich. The Munich
example was another portrait of herself; and there
was a third in the Uffizi at Florence. A few of
her works in private collections were exhibited
among the Old Masters at Burlington House. But she
is perhaps best known by the numerous engravings
from her designs by Schiavonetti, Francesco
Bartolozzi|Bartolozzi and others. Those by
Bartolozzi especially still found considerable
favour with collectors.

Her life was written in 1810 by Giovanni de Rossi.
It has also been used as the basis of a romance by
Leon de Wailly (1838) and it prompted the charming
novel contributed by Mrs Richmond Ritchie to the
Cornhill Magazine in 1875 entitled "Miss Angel".

==References==
commonscat|Angelica Kauffmann
*1911