758 - after Angelica Kauffman, Pliny the Younger and his Mother at Misenum, Vesuvius, History Painting

after Angelica Kauffman, Pliny the Younger and his Mother at Misenum, Vesuvius, History Painting Oil on canvas, unsigned, on the reverse a second subject, river landscape with a building with tower behind trees on the bank and a rowing boat on the water, copy after the painting by Angelica Kauffman in Princeton, scene on a terrace with balustrade, round arch and fluted column, on the left the seated mother in a reddish-brown robe with white headscarf, in the centre the young Pliny with stylus and scroll, on the right a bearded man in reddish-brown robe and brown cloak pointing to the left with both hands, behind the balustrade the sea, a flash of lightning in the dark red sky and the silhouette of Vesuvius, age-appropriate condition, paint losses, canvas slightly wavy, small holes lower left and upper right, image 70.5x102 cm (HxW) Angelica Kauffman (1741 Chur to 1807 Rome) was in 1768, alongside Mary Moser, the only woman among the 34 founding members of the Royal Academy in London. Her history painting Pliny the Younger and his Mother at Misenum, AD 79, painted in 1785 for the collector George Bowles, is today in the Princeton University Art Museum. Following the letters of Pliny the Younger to Tacitus, it shows Pliny reading beside his mother while a friend of his uncle points to the distant Vesuvius in smoke and fire. As a Neoclassical history painting with Vesuvius in the background, the Pliny subject was spread from the late 18th century in engravings and painted copies after Kauffman.