KAUFFMANN, ANGELICA. — Painter, b. at Chur in the Grisons on 30 Oct. 1741, d. at Rome on 5 Nov. 1807, one of the most interesting and significant personalities in the artistic culture of her time.
Extremely precocious, in 1752 at Como she painted a portrait of Bishop Nervoni; in 1757 she collaborated with her father in decorating the parish church of Schwarzenberg. Then, after a journey through Italy and a stay of about three years in Rome, where she was made an academician of S. Luca, she went to London (1766–81).
Having returned to Italy, she first went to Venice and then to Rome, where the drawing room of her house in Via Sistina became one of the most famous in the city; there she received the leading figures of Roman and foreign cultural life, including Goethe, A. Canova, and numerous princes, especially Germans, eager to be portrayed by her. In 1800 she painted the altarpiece for the parish church of Schwarzenberg representing the Coronation of the Virgin. But in general her works, now in the major public and private collections of Europe and America, are portraits and compositions of various secular subjects, painted in a delicate and light manner, recalling the typical chromatic grace of the 18th century, though in their schemes and attitudes they already show an orientation toward Neoclassical taste.