3-070-679 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Portrait of Countess Potocka, by Angelica Kauffman, in the Dresden Gallery, engraved by permission of the Berlin Photographic Company, 1881. Portrait '...of a Polish lady, celebrated for her beauty a hundred years ago...Angelica Kauffman, born in 1741, the daughter of Swiss parents but educated in Italy, was early instructed by her father, himself a painter...She came to London under aristocratic patronage, and was received with much favour at the Court of George III. and Queen Charlotte, as well as by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Fuseli, and other leading members of the Royal Academy, who procured her the appointment of professor. Some great misfortune befel her at this period of her life. It is said that she was deceived and entrapped into a false marriage by the contrivance of a profligate English nobleman; but her industry and success as a professional artist were not impaired by this disaster nor did she forfeit the sympathy of the kind-hearted Queen. In 1781, she married the Venetian painter, Antonio Zucchi, and thenceforth passed most of her life at Rome. She was visited by...German poets and literary men, who have borne testimony to her rare intellectual endowments...Her pictures are to be found in all the chief galleries of art in Europe'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.