Angelica kauffman, or the art of painting against oblivion
Imagine London in 1768. The streets echo with the clatter of horses pulling gilded carriages, while the drawing rooms hum with conversations in French, Italian, English—a cosmopolitan murmur where powdered-wig aristocrats cross paths with artists hungry for glory. It was into this whirlwind that a twenty-seven-year-old woman, dressed in a pale blue silk gown, stepped through the doors of Somerset House for the first meeting of the newly founded Royal Academy of Arts. Her name was Angelica Kauffman, and she was one of only two women among the thirty-four founding members. Around her, men with skeptical eyes—Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, Benjamin West—wondered: how had a woman, and a foreigner at that, managed to impose herself in this masculine temple of British art? The answer lay in a single word: the brush, of course—but also in a quiet audacity, a knack for networking, and that rare ability to turn the constraints of her time into opportunities.
By Artedusa
••14 min readWhat strikes us first about Kauffman is not just her talent—though her canvases, now scattered between the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, and the Georgian drawing rooms of England, speak eloquently enough. No, it is her way of navigating a world that was never made for her. At a time when women artists were relegated to still lifes or intimate portraits, she chose to paint History. Not the small details of daily life, but grand mythological narratives, biblical scenes, moral allegories—those noble subjects that built the reputation of academies and attracted prestigious commissions. And she did so with such mastery that Catherine II of Russia, the philosopher empress, hung her works alongside those of Raphael in her palace at Tsarskoye Selo.
Yet behind this dazzling success lies a more complex reality. Kauffman was never allowed to study academic nude drawing, forbidden to women. She never had access to the same circles as her male counterparts. And when, in 1775, an unfounded rumor accused her of having an affair with Joshua Reynolds, it was her reputation that was tarnished, not his. So how did she do it? How did this Swiss woman, raised between the Alps and Roman studios, become one of Europe’s most sought-after artists? The answer lies in her paintings, of course, but also in the letters she exchanged with her patrons, the salons she frequented, and that unique way she had of blending neoclassical rigor with a sensibility that was almost Romantic before its time.
01The brush and prejudice: how to become a woman painter in the 18th century
To understand Angelica Kauffman, one must first imagine what it meant, in the 18th century, to be a woman and want to paint. Not flowers, not cats, not genre scenes—no, to paint History, with a capital H. This genre, the noblest in the eyes of academies, required an in-depth knowledge of anatomy, perspective, composition. Yet women were forbidden from studying the nude. They were not allowed in the studios where cadavers were dissected to understand musculature. Nor were they permitted to travel alone to copy the masters in Italian churches.
Kauffman circumvented these obstacles with an ingenuity that commands admiration. Born in 1741 in Chur, in the Swiss Grisons, she grew up under the guidance of her father, Joseph Johann Kauffman, a mediocre but ambitious painter who recognized her talent early. By twelve, she spoke four languages—German, Italian, French, and English—and played the harpsichord with virtuosity. At fourteen, she accompanied her father to Italy, where she spent hours copying Raphael’s frescoes in the Vatican and the antique sculptures of the Capitoline. That journey was her true education. In a letter to a friend, she later wrote: “I never had a master, only the walls of Rome.”
But Rome, as inspiring as it was, was not enough. To make a name in the art world, one needed commissions, and to get commissions, one needed visibility. Kauffman thus devised a three-part strategy: first, specialize in portraits of Grand Tour travelers—those young British aristocrats who roamed Europe to complete their education. Then, use those portraits as calling cards to secure more ambitious commissions. Finally, settle in London, where the art market was booming.
Her arrival in the British capital in 1766 marked a turning point. Within months, she became the darling of high society. Court ladies flocked to her studio in Golden Square to be immortalized as vestals or muses. Gentlemen, meanwhile, commissioned mythological scenes where they could slip into the roles of Apollo or Jupiter. And when the Royal Academy was founded in 1768, she was one of only two women—alongside flower painter Mary Moser—to become a member. An achievement, considering women were not admitted as full members until… 1936.
02The palette of ambition: when neoclassicism becomes a weapon
If Kauffman succeeded in imposing herself, it was also because she knew how to play by the rules of her time. Neoclassicism, that artistic movement born in reaction to the frivolity of Rococo, was then at its peak. Artists drew inspiration from Greek and Roman antiquity, seeking to recapture the “noble simplicity and calm grandeur” advocated by theorist Johann Joachim Winckelmann. Kauffman, who had studied Pompeian frescoes and Greek vases, mastered these codes perfectly.
Take Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi (1785), one of her most famous works. The scene depicts a Roman matron who, when asked about her jewels, presents her sons and says, “These are my treasures.” Everything in this composition breathes the neoclassical ideal: the antique drapery, the hieratic poses, the subdued palette dominated by ochres and pale blues. But look closer. The children’s faces, with their almost melancholic softness, betray a sensibility that goes beyond mere stylistic exercise. And that golden light bathing the scene? It is not there just to highlight the forms—it creates an atmosphere, almost an emotion.
This is where Kauffman’s genius lies: she took the rules of neoclassicism and bent them to her own vision. Her paintings are never cold, never didactic. They tell stories, of course, but they do so with such delicacy that the viewer is invited to project themselves into them. In Zeuxis Choosing His Models for the Painting of Helen of Troy (1778), for example, she transforms an academic subject—the Greek artist Zeuxis selecting the most beautiful women of Croton to represent ideal beauty—into a meditation on artistic creation. The models, lined up like statues, seem both offered and distant. And Zeuxis himself, bent over his drawing, has the gaze of a man who knows he will never capture the essence of beauty.
This ability to blend formal rigor with emotion made Kauffman a unique artist. Her contemporaries often compared her to Raphael for the purity of her drawing, but also to Guido Reni for the softness of her colors. Yet she never sought to imitate anyone. As she wrote in her notebooks: “A painter must study the masters, but must also listen to their own voice.”
03The studio as a salon: when art becomes a social network
In 18th-century Europe, an artist could not content themselves with painting. They also had to know how to sell themselves, make allies, and turn their studio into a place of sociability where patrons, collectors, and other artists mingled. Kauffman excelled in this subtle art of networking, and her London studio in Golden Square became one of the city’s most sought-after salons.
Picture the scene: an autumn afternoon, golden light filtering through the studio’s tall windows. On the walls, sanguine sketches hang beside works in progress—a portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire here, a study for an allegory of Music there. At the center of the room, Angelica, dressed in a white muslin gown, converses with a group of men in silk coats. Among them, the Duke of Dorset, one of her most loyal patrons, listens attentively to her explanations on the symbolism of colors in Telemachus’s Grief. Nearby, Joshua Reynolds, president of the Royal Academy, examines a sketch with a nod. And in a corner, a shy young man—perhaps a poet or musician—leafs through a book of prints, stealing glances at the mistress of the house.
Kauffman understood something essential: in a world where women were excluded from circles of power, the studio could become a space of freedom. In hers, art was not the only topic of conversation. They discussed politics—the French Revolution, which had just erupted, was shaking European monarchies. They spoke of the latest archaeological discoveries—the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii fascinated minds. They exchanged gossip, too, like the rumor about the Prince of Wales and his mistress, the actress Mary Robinson.
But Kauffman did not just receive guests. She knew how to make herself indispensable. When King George III commissioned a series of paintings to decorate the Queen’s House in Greenwich, he chose her to paint The Four Seasons. When ceramics manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood wanted to launch a new collection of vases inspired by antiquity, she provided the designs. And when Empress Catherine II of Russia decided to furnish her palace at Tsarskoye Selo, she turned to Kauffman once again.
This ability to make herself irreplaceable allowed her to weather crises with minimal damage. In 1775, when rumors of an affair with Joshua Reynolds began to circulate, she defused the scandal by marrying Antonio Zucchi, a Venetian painter who became both her artistic and business partner. And when, in 1781, she left London for Rome, it was not a retreat but a new phase in her career. In the Eternal City, she became a central figure in the expatriate artistic community, hosting luminaries like Goethe and the sculptor Antonio Canova.
04The forbidden body: how to paint History without studying the nude
There is a fascinating paradox in Angelica Kauffman’s career. How could an artist who painted some of the most ambitious historical and mythological scenes of her time do so without ever studying the academic nude? For it is a fact: women were not allowed in the studios where live models were drawn. And without that intimate knowledge of the human body, how could one depict gods, heroes, allegories with the required precision?
Kauffman found solutions. First, she studied antique sculptures. The marbles of the Vatican, the bronzes of Pompeii, the bas-reliefs of Greek temples—all these models taught her proportions, attitudes, drapery. Then, she observed the men and women around her, noting in her notebooks the details that made the difference: the way a shoulder lifts when carrying a burden, the curve of a back bent over a book, the tension of a hand gripping an object.
But her true strength lay in her ability to suggest rather than show. Look at Venus Persuading Helen to Love Paris (1790). The goddess of Love, seated on a cloud, offers an apple to Helen, who turns away with a troubled expression. The bodies are barely visible beneath the drapery, yet one senses their movement, their tension. Kauffman plays with the folds of fabric to evoke the forms they conceal. A bare shoulder here, a knee peeking through the dress there—just enough for the viewer’s imagination to fill in the gaps.
This approach had an unexpected consequence: it gave her paintings an almost erotic dimension, but in a subtle, veiled way. In Psyche Showing Her Jewels to Her Sisters (1790), for example, the young woman, dressed in a diaphanous tunic, seems both offered and protected by her garment. The fabric clings to her skin, revealing the curves of her body, without ever descending into vulgarity. It is an intellectual, almost philosophical sensuality—a way of saying that beauty lies as much in what is shown as in what is hidden.
05The walls that speak: when art steps down from the easel
Angelica Kauffman did not just paint canvases. She also left her mark on walls, ceilings, and even everyday objects. Her influence on 18th-century decorative arts is often underestimated, yet she played a key role in spreading neoclassicism into European interiors.
Take the ceilings of Saltram House in Devon. In 1769, the owner of this Georgian mansion, John Parker, commissioned Kauffman to paint a series of frescoes for the main drawing room. The result is breathtaking: mythological scenes—The Abduction of Ganymede, Apollo and the Muses—painted directly onto the plaster, with a freshness and luminosity that seem to defy time. What strikes the viewer is how these frescoes dialogue with the room’s architecture. The figures, reclining on clouds or seated on rocks, appear to float in space, creating an illusion of depth. And the colors—those pale blues, tender pinks, golden yellows—blend perfectly with the woodwork and upholstery.
But Kauffman did not stop there. She also collaborated with Josiah Wedgwood, the famous ceramics manufacturer, to create a series of vases and plates inspired by antiquity. Her designs—scenes from Greek mythology, stylized floral motifs—gave rise to pieces now considered masterpieces of neoclassical design. The most famous of these is undoubtedly the Portland Vase, a jasperware replica of an ancient Roman vase, whose bas-reliefs depict scenes from the legend of Medea.
This diversification was not just a business move. It was also a way for Kauffman to extend her influence beyond the world of painting. By decorating interiors and designing everyday objects, she helped shape the taste of her time. And she did so with an elegance that has endured. Even today, when you enter a Georgian drawing room or admire a Wedgwood vase, there is a good chance you are encountering an echo of her genius.
06The legacy of a shadow: why Kauffman nearly disappeared
Yet despite this exceptional career, Angelica Kauffman nearly faded into oblivion. In the 19th century, as Romanticism and then Impressionism swept away neoclassical canons, her work was relegated to the status of a historical curiosity. Critics reproached her for her lack of “passion,” her “cold academicism.” And then there was that nagging question: how could a woman have painted such ambitious subjects?
It was not until the 20th century that art historians began to reassess her work. In the 1970s, with the rise of feminist studies, she was rediscovered as a pioneer—a woman who had dared to defy the conventions of her time. Today, her paintings hang in the world’s greatest museums, and her name appears prominently in art history textbooks.
But her true legacy goes far beyond books. Kauffman paved the way for generations of women artists. Thanks to her, painters like Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard were able, in turn, to impose themselves in a male-dominated world. And even today, when a young woman artist ventures into historical painting, she walks, perhaps unknowingly, in Angelica’s footsteps.
So the next time you admire a neoclassical painting, ask yourself: what if this scene, with its antique drapery and idealized poses, had been painted by a woman? What if that woman had to invent strategies, circumvent obstacles, turn the limits of her time into opportunities? You will then have a small idea of what Angelica Kauffman accomplished. Not just an artist among others, but a woman who painted against oblivion.