 |
| Pompeo Batoni Head of a Woman before 1787 drawing Philadelphia Museum of Art |
 |
| Pompeo Batoni Head of a Woman ca. 1763-75 drawing Philadelphia Museum of Art |
 |
| Pompeo Batoni Head of a Young Woman ca. 1755-60 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
 |
| Pompeo Batoni Head of an Old Woman ca. 1741-46 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
 |
| Pompeo Batoni Head of a Frightened Young Woman before 1787 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
"Batoni's activity as a draughtsman is of critical importance for understanding his methods as a painter. He was a conscientious artist, as careful as he was inventive, for whom drawing from the model performed a decisive role in the preparation of the final work. Drawings provided Batoni with the means to fashion his figures, define their attitudes and expressions, and organise his compositions. He composed his paintings strictly within the Bolognese-Roman academic tradition, and the types of drawings he produced in the course of working out a particular design may be more or less categorised according to their method and function. Although a full range of studies for any single work is lacking, enough survive from different preparatory stages to illuminate Batoni's approach to pictorial invention from swiftly sketched compositional ideas to carefully finished figure studies to details of hands, heads, and drapery."
– from Pompeo Baton: Prince of Painters in Eighteenth-century Rome by Edgar Peters Brown and Peter Björn Kerber (Yale University Press, 2007)
 |
| Pompeo Batoni Antique Sculpture - Draped Male Torso before 1762 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
 |
| Pompeo Batoni Study of Seated Female Figure before 1787 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
 |
| Pompeo Batoni Study for Figure of Vigilance before 1787 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
"Batoni . . . produced whole-figure studies from the life model to establish or adjust the poses and gestures of individual figures; these are often the most brilliant examples of his skill as a draughtsman. Such studies abound in Batoni's graphic oeuvre, for he relied extensively on models in preparing his compositions. This ability to remain close to nature throughout the process of pictorial invention explains both the meticulous naturalism admired in his work by contemporary and modern critics and why, at least until the last few years of his life, his history paintings remain remarkably convincing. Batoni's strict adherence to the classical principle of composing with a few powerfully conceived figures and focusing attention on their attitudes and gestures served him well. One reason that he could achieve such persuasive naturalism in his art is that by using relatively few figures in most of his subject paintings he could study and articulate in detail the roles they were expected to play in his pictorial dramas."
– from Pompeo Baton: Prince of Painters in Eighteenth-century Rome by Edgar Peters Brown and Peter Björn Kerber (Yale University Press, 2007)
 |
| Pompeo Batoni Studies for St Bartholomew ca. 1740 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| attributed to Pompeo Batoni Study for Allegory of Music (Apollo, Mercury, Mars) before 1762 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
 |
| Pompeo Batoni Study for Allegory in Honor of Pope Benedict XIV ca. 1745 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
 |
| Pompeo Batoni Sheet of Studies 1742-43 drawing British Museum |
 |
| Pompeo Batoni Sheet of Studies ca. 1760-70 drawing National Gallerie of Scotland |
 |
| Pompeo Batoni Studies for The Fall of Simon Magus ca, 1761 drawing Morgan Library, New York |
 |
| Pompeo Batoni Studies of a Bearded Man ca. 1740-45 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |