Description
Pompeo Batoni’s grand portraits and numerous religious and historical commissions established him as the leading Roman painter of his day. He painted Peace and War on his own initiative, without a commission, attracting critical praise for the work’s graceful invention. It combines elements of Rococo softness and eroticism with the newly fashionable Neoclassical style. War, represented by the god Mars, is restrained by a personification of peace, who bears an olive branch.
Provenance
In the artist’s studio from 1776 until at least January of 1781 [for early mentions of the picture including those in letters of Father John Thorpe to Lord Arundel, see Bowron 2016, pp. 518-20]. Probably Comtesse Clotilde Eugénie d’Oultremont (née van den Steen de Jehay, 1850–1932); by descent to her daughter Elisabeth von Furstenberg (née d’Oultremont, died 1953), Brussels; by descent to her son Maximilien, Cardinal von Furstenberg (died 1988), Brussels, Lisbon, and Vatican City; by descent to his nephew Comte Wenemar de Furstenberg, Belgium [see copy of Cardinal von Fürstenberg’s note of June 5, 1977, listing paintings bequeathed to Comte Wenemar de Furstenberg, and the count’s letter to Jean-François Heim, dated March 27, 1998, in object file]; sold through Jean-François Heim, Paris, to the Art Institute, 1998.
Accession Number
149778
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
136 × 99 cm (53 1/2 × 39 in.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Credit Line
Gift of the Old Masters Society