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| Pompeo Batoni Pope Benedict XIV presenting the Encyclical Ex Omnibus to the Comte de Stainville, later Duc de Choiseul 1757 oil on canvas Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Pompeo Batoni Portrait of Prince Abbondio Rezzonico, nephew of Pope Clement XIII 1766 oil on canvas Museo Civico di Bassano |
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| Pompeo Batoni Portrait of Gerolama Santacroce before 1787 oil on canvas Museo di Roma a Palazzo Baschi (Rome) |
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| Pompeo Batoni Portrait of Cardinal Prospero Colonna di Sciarra ca. 1750 oil on canvas Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
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| Pompeo Batoni Portrait of Princess Cecilia Mahony Giustiniani 1785 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
"Pompeo Girolamo Batoni was born in Lucca in 1708 and was a pupil of his father, a goldsmith, until, in 1728 or a bit earlier, he was enabled by the support of a wealthy local patron, Alessandro Guinigi, to study painting in Rome. Sebastiano Conca and Agostino Masucci were recommended to him as masters, but the superficial virtuosity that was taught in their studios was not to the taste of the emerging young artist. He sought instead to emulate in his own way the example of Raphael and classical antiquity by making copies and drawings, with great diligence, after the Stanze in the Vatican and the most celebrated statues of antiquity. . . . From our current perspective, the decisive fact in the evaluation of Batoni's importance lies in his position between the two great artistic movements of the 18th century, the exhausted Baroque tradition and the emerging classical movement. Between these two movements a brief and not very clearly defined Rococo period in Rome constitutes little more than a vague transitional zone. . . . From his beginnings Batoni shared with Marco Benefial a dissatisfaction with the mannerism of the generation of Masucci, Conca and Trevisani. For him, too, the line of development leading from Raphael to the Carracci served as the standard for Roman art, and in his own art the cultural influence of antiquity is far more evident than in the case of his like-minded associates. Yet Batoni's relationship with solid Roman tradition takes on a particular stylistic stamp due to the fact that his talent disposed him more toward a finely polished, cleanly executed and eye-pleasing manner than in the direction of the grand, the powerful and the austerely pathetic effects toward with Benefial strove."
– Hermann Voss, from Baroque Painting in Rome (1925), revised and translated by Thomas Pelzel (San Francisco: Alan Wofsy, 1997)
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| Pompeo Batoni Allegory of the Arts 1740 oil on canvas Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt |
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| Pompeo Batoni Allegory of Peace and War 1776 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Pompeo Batoni Allegory of Peace and Justice ca. 1745 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal |
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| Pompeo Batoni Allegory of Truth and Mercy ca. 1745 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal |
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| Pompeo Batoni Time unveiling Truth ca. 1740-45 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Pompeo Batoni Time directing Old Age to destroy Beauty ca. 1746 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
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| Pompeo Batoni Apollo and Two Muses (workshop replica) before 1787 oil on canvas Wilanów Palace Museum, Warsaw |
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| Pompeo Batoni Mercury crowning Philosophy Mother of the Arts 1747 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Pompeo Batoni Purity of Heart 1752 oil on canvas National Trust, Uppark, Petersfield, Sussex |