The artistic theories as well as the works of the German painter Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779) were influential in the rejection of baroque ideas and the triumph of neoclassicism which took place in the late 18th century in Rome.

Anton Raphael Mengs was born in Aussig, Bohemia, on March 22, 1728, the son of a painter, Ismael Mengs, whose pupil he became. Taken to Rome to study with Marco Benefial and Sebastiano Conca from 1741 to 1744, Anton Raphael was said to have sometimes been locked into the Stanze of Raphael in the Vatican overnight by his father to make him copy the master's works--a stark but not untypical example of 18th-century pedagogy.

In 1744, living in Dresden, the 16-year-old artist produced pastel portraits of great accomplishment, particularly of members of the Saxon court. Appointed Saxon court painter in 1746, Mengs soon returned to Rome to continue his studies of ancient and Renaissance art...