One of the most influential writers on art and archaeology—his History of Ancient Art was published in German in 1764—Johann Joachim Winckelmann was also a close friend and admirer of Mengs. Both were leading exponents of the nascent Neoclassical movement in Rome. In this idealized posthumous portrait Winckelmann is shown holding a Greek edition of Homer's Iliad.

Anton Raphael Mengs, born in Bohemia (in what is now the Czech Republic), spent his childhood in Dresden where his father, Ismael Mengs (1688–1764), was court painter to Friedrich August II (1696–1763) of Saxony, King of Poland. The aptly named youth was schooled principally in Rome, where he spent the greater part of his life from 1740 onward. Mengs was well known to his contemporaries as a practitioner and theorist of Neoclassicism; he has been less admired since, and it could perhaps even be argued that he was too much influenced by Raphael (1483–1520). Among Mengs's most famous works are the ballroom ceiling depicting Parnassus in Cardinal Albani's villa in Rome, completed in 1761, and the fresco decorations undertaken immediately thereafter in the royal palace in Madrid.

Mengs was a disciple of the archeologist and writer Johann Joseph Winckelmann (1717–1768), who is credited with the rediscovery of ancient Greek art. Winckelmann, from Brandenburg, was educated in Latin, Greek, and theology at the universities of Halle and Jena; in 1748 he secured employment as a librarian at Nöthnitz, near Dresden, which allowed him to make himself known to members of the electoral court of Saxony. He converted to Roman Catholicism and through connections in the church hierarchy found his way to Italy, where he was to report back on recent archaeological discoveries at Herculaneum. Mengs and Winckelmann met within days of Winckelmann's arrival in Rome in 1755. Their backgrounds were similar. Each admired the other and they shared a variety of interests and a wide acquaintance, especially among artists and foreign visitors. Winckelmann published his most important work, a history of ancient art (in its original language, "Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums"), in 1764. Having intended to visit Germany in 1768, he found himself in Trieste, where he was brutally murdered in what may have been a homosexual encounter.

This elegiac, idealized portrait was painted as a memorial in about 1777, several years after the sitter's death and not long before the death of the painter. José Nicolás de Azara (died 1804), the Spanish ambassador to Rome, was the first owner of Mengs's portrait of Winckelmann, which he described as "handsomer than he, and yet like him." The sitter wears a white linen shirt, open at the neck, with a lace ruffle. The title of the open book he holds is inscribed in Greek on the spine: Iliad.

[2011]

Inscription: Inscribed (on spine of book, in Greek): ILIAD

José Nicolás de Azara, marques de Nibbiano, Spanish ambassador to Rome (by 1794–d. 1804); his nephew, Cardinal Don Dionisio Bardaji y Azara, Rome (1804–1807/8; sold to LeBrun); [Jean Baptiste Pierre LeBrun, Paris, 1807/8–1810; LeBrun, Notice 1809, no. 217; sale, LeBrun, Paris, March 23, 1810, no. 186, as Le portrait de Vilkelmann, gravé à la tête de ses oeuvres, de la collection d'Azara, for Fr 660 to Leroche for Arteria]; [Arteria, Vienna, 1810]; Princess Isabella Lubomirska, Vienna (1810–d. 1816); by descent to the Princes Lubomirski, Lemberg and Cracow (from 1816); by descent to Prince Casimir Lubomirski, Cracow (by 1905–d. 1930); his son, Prince Sebastian Lubomirski, Cracow and Zurich (1930–47; sold through Walter Hugelshofer to MMA)

Florence. Palazzo Vecchio. "Mostra del ritratto italiano dalla fine del sec. XVI all'anno 1861," March–July 1911, no. 66 (as L'archeologo Winckelmann (?), lent by Prince Casimir Lubomirski, Cracow).

Hartford. Wadsworth Atheneum. "Homage to Mozart," March 22–April 29, 1956, no. 40.

Bregenz. Vorarlberger Landesmuseum. "Angelika Kauffmann und ihre Zeitgenossen," July 23–October 13, 1968, no. 342.

Vienna. Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst. "Angelika Kauffmann und ihre Zeitgenossen," November 8, 1968–February 1, 1969, no. 342.

London. Royal Academy, and. Victoria and Albert Museum. "The Age of Neo-Classicism," September 9–November 19, 1972, no. 192.

Storrs, Conn. William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut. "The Academy of Europe: Rome in the 18th Century," October 13–November 21, 1973, no. 98.

Washington. National Gallery of Art. "The Eye of Th: Jefferson," June 5–September 6, 1976, no. 155.

Athens. National Pinakothiki, Alexander Soutzos Museum. "Treasures from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Memories and Revivals of the Classical Spirit," August 15–November 15, 1979, no. 58.

Madrid. Museo del Prado. "Antonio Rafael Mengs, 1728–1779," June–July 1980, no. 29.

Hamburger Kunsthalle. "Europa 1789: Aufklärung, Verklärung, Verfall," September 15–November 19, 1989, no. 59.

Philadelphia Museum of Art. "The Splendor of 18th-Century Rome," March 16–May 28, 2000, no. 259.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "The Splendor of 18th-Century Rome," June 25–September 17, 2000, no. 259.

Martigny. Fondation Pierre Gianadda. "The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Chefs-d'œuvre de la peinture européenne," June 23–November 12, 2006, no. 25.

Barcelona. Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. "Grandes maestros de la pintura europea de The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nueva York: De El Greco a Cézanne," December 1, 2006–March 4, 2007, no. 20.

Johann Joachim Winckelmann. Histoire de l'Art chez les Anciens. Paris, 1794, vol. 1, ill. (frontispiece) [1802–3 ed., 2 vols. in 3, vol. 1, ill. (frontispiece)], illustrates an engraving titled J. WINKELMANN and inscribed "Gravé d'après le Déssin de Salésa fait sur le tableau d'Antoine Raphaël Mengs qui est dans le Cabinet de M. le Chev. d'Azara, Ministre Plen. du Roi d'Espagne à Rome".

[Jean Baptiste Pierre] LeBrun. Recueil de gravures au trait, à l'eau forte, et ombrées, d'après un choix de tableaux de toutes les écoles, recueillis dans un voyage fait en Espagne, au Midi de la France et en Italie, dans les années 1807 et 1808. Paris, 1809, vol. 2, p. 95, mentions buying six paintings including the portrait of Winckelmann and several drawings by Mengs from Monseigneur Bardaki, M. d'Azara's heir in Rome.

Domenico Rossetti. Il sepolcro di Winckelmann in Trieste. Venice, 1823, pp. 17, 160, mentions in addition to the engraving after Salesa an engraving by Senff of 1804; lists also a drawing in profile by Giovanni Casanova, and an engraving after it published in 1766; a painting by the Danish artist Hals; a painting by Kauffmann of 1764, and various engravings; a painting by Maron of 1767, and various engravings; and works by Oeser, Hancarville, Reifenstein, Doel, and Antonio Bosa.

Otto Jahn. "Die Bildnisse Winckelmanns." Allgemeine Monatsschrift für Wissenschaft und Literatur 4 (June 1854), pp. 428–29, 432, 434, 436–37, as in the Lubomirska collection, Vienna, in 1815; dates it before autumn 1761 and finds it strange that Winckelmann does not mention it in his letters; lists an engraving after it by Blot.

Charles Blanc. Le trésor de la curiosité. 2, Paris, 1858, p. 275.

Otto Jahn. "Die Bildnisse Winckelmann's." Biographische Aufsätze. 2nd ed. Leipzig, 1866, pp. 71–72, 75, 77–78, 86–87.

The History of Ancient Art, Translated from the German of John Winckelmann. Boston, 1872, vol. 1, p. 138 [1880 ed., p. 98], dates it about 1763, noting that it is "handsomer than he, and yet like him, as the possessor of it [Azara] affirmed".

Julius Vogel. "Zu den Bildnissen Winckelmann's." Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst, n.s., 6 (1898–99), p. 155, ill. (Senff engraving), identifies as Winckelmann the sitter for a portrait in the Leipzig Universitätsbibliothek.

Julius Brann. "Das Winckelmann-Porträt von Anton Raphael Mengs." Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst, n.s. 16, 7 (April 1905), pp. 173–75, ill. opp. p. 173, as in the collection of Casimir Lubomirski, Cracow; dates it about 1756, noting that it was relined by Hauser in Berlin.

O. von Boenigk. "Winckelmann im Bilde." Wissenschaftliche Beilage der Magdeburger Zeitung 58 (1906) [see Ref. Roettgen 1999, vol. 1, p. 306], rejects the attribution to Mengs.

Miss A. R. Evans. Palazzo Vecchio and the Portrait Exhibition. Florence, 1911, p. 36.

Hermann Uhde-Bernays. "Zu den Bildnissen Winckelmanns." Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft 6 (1913), pp. 55–59, as in the Lubomirski collection, Cracow; dates it about 1761 and states that the portrait Vogel published probably represents Mengs himself.

Hermann Thiersch. Winckelmann und seine Bildnisse. Munich, 1918, pp. 21–28, 30, 48, fig. 3, dates it tentatively to 1761.

Hermann Voss. Die Malerei des Barock in Rom. Berlin, [1925], p. 659, as in the collection of the Princes Lubomirski, Lemberg; dates it in the second half of the 1750s.

Kurt Gerstenberg. Johann Joachim Winckelmann und Anton Raphael Mengs. Halle, 1929, pp. 19–20, as in the collection of the Princes Lubomirski, Cracow; dates it 1761–62.

Hans Wolfgang Singer. Neuer Bildniskatalog. Leipzig, 1938, vol. 5, p. 126, no. 39004.

Josephine L. Allen. "Johann Joachim Winckelmann Classicist." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 7 (April 1949), pp. 229–32, ill., dates it soon after 1755, mentions an old label on the frame inscribed R[ome]. 1756.

"Erwebungen amerikanischer Museen." Weltkunst 10 (July 15, 1949), p. 9.

Johann Joachim Winckelmann. Briefe. Berlin, 1952–57, vol. 3, 1956, p. 264, no. 856; vol. 4, 1957, pp. 232, 502–3, no. 125b, demonstrate that Mengs must have painted it after 27 May 1767.

Walther Rehm. Letter to the Museum. May 11, 1953, proposes that it may be by Peder Als.

Arthur Schulz. Die Bildnisse Johann Joachim Winckelmanns. Berlin, 1953, pp. 6–8, 54–55, fig. 2.

Hans Zeller. "Zur Entstehung der Winckelmann-Büsten von Friedrich Wilhelm Doell, I. Die Beiden Entwürfe von 1777 und die Kasseler Bronze." Jahresgabe der Winckelmann-Gesellschaft Stendal 1954/55. Berlin, 1956, pp. 21–23.

Arthur Schulz. "Winckelmann und seine Welt." Jahresgabe der Winckelmann-Gesellschaft Stendal 1961. 1962, pp. 151–53, fig. 147.

Denys Sutton. "The Neo-Classic Ideal." Apollo 78 (November 1963), pp. 337–38, fig. 6.

Dieter Honisch. Anton Raphael Mengs und die Bildform des Frühklassizismus. Recklinghausen, 1965, p. 70, no. 13, dates it 1761/62.

Anthony M. Clark in Angelika Kauffmann und ihre Zeitgenossen. Exh. cat., Vorarlberger Landesmuseum. Bregenz, 1968, p. 121, no. 342, fig. 169.

Herbert von Einem. "Review of Winckelmann, Johann Joachim: Kleine Schriften." Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunst Wissenschaft 15 (1970), p. 120.

Steffi Röttgen. "'Antonius de Maron faciebat Romae': Intorno all'opera di Anton von Maron a Roma." Artisti austriaci a Roma dal barocco alla secessione. Exh. cat., Museo di Roma. Rome, 1972, p. 5.

Bozenna Majewska-Maszkowska. Mecenat artystyczny Izabelli z Czartoryskich Lubomirskiej (1736–1816). Wroclaw, 1976, pp. 310, 631, no. 233, fig. 233, as in the collections of Princess Isabella Lubomirska and Prince Casimir Lubomirski, Cracow.

Ross Watson in The Eye of Th: Jefferson. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1976, pp. 97–98, 365, no. 155, ill.

Harold Acton. "The Bourbons of Naples as Patrons of the Arts." Connoisseur 196 (October 1977), p. 90, fig. 17.

James David Draper and Joan R. Mertens. Treasures from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Memories and Revivals of the Classical Spirit. Exh. cat., National Pinakothiki, Alexander Soutzos Museum. Athens, 1979, pp. 30, 174, no. 58, ill. (color), as "the basis for a monument erected to [Winckelmann] in the Pantheon".

Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, pp. 378, 384–85, fig. 682 (color).

Xavier de Salas. Antonio Rafael Mengs 1728–1779. Exh. cat., Museo del Prado. Madrid, 1980, pp. 84–85, no. 29, ill., dates it 1755–61.

Rosanna Cioffi Martinelli. La ragione dell' arte. Naples, 1981, fig. 12.

Christian Pescheck. "Ausschnittskopie eines Vermissten Bildes von Winckelmann Entdeckt?" Archäologischer Anzeiger 4 (1983), p. 673, no. 2, questions the attribution to Mengs.

Nikolai N. Nikulin. German and Austrian Painting: Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. Florence, 1987, p. 308.

Brockhaus Enzyklopädie. 14, 19th ed. Mannheim, 1991, p. 458.

Roland Kanz. Dichter und Denker im Porträt: Spurengänge zur deutschen Porträtkultur des 18. Jahrhunderts. Munich, 1993, pp. 94–96, 220–21 n. 375, fig. 36, dates it 1758–62.

Claudia Tutsch. "Man muß mit ihnen, wie mit seinem Freund, bekannt geworden seyn . . . ": Zum Bildnis Johann Joachim Winckelmanns von Anton von Maron. Mainz, 1995, pp. 22, 38, 53 n. 229, p. 54 n. 236, dates it earlier than the Maron portrait of 1767–68; mentions the posthumous bronze bust by Friedrich Wilhelm Eugen Doell [1777/78, Kassel; see fig. 7].

Anton Raphael Mengs: Pensieri sulla Pittura nella traduzione di José Nicolas de Azara (1780). Palermo, 1996, p. 77, dates it after Mengs's return to Rome in 1777.

Alex Potts in The Dictionary of Art. 33, New York, 1996, p. 241, dates it 1756–61.

Barbara Steindl in The Dictionary of Art. 21, New York, 1996, p. 132, dates it 1761–62.

Hermann Voss. "The High and Late Baroque, Rococo and Early Neoclassicism, 1620–1790." Baroque Painting in Rome. 2, rev. and trans. ed. San Francisco, 1997, p. 182.

Bettina Baumgärtel in Angelika Kauffmann. Exh. cat., Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf. Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany, 1998, pp. 130–31, as finished in 1761; publishes a drawing by Kauffmann of Winckelmann of about 1767/68 from the Valardi sketchbook in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London [fig. 97].

Steffi Roettgen. Anton Raphael Mengs, 1728–1779. Munich, 1999–2003, vol. 1, pp. 306–7, 322, no. 237, ill.; vol. 2, pp. 159, 370, figs. III-1, VI-34, associates it with Alexander Doell's 1777 portrait bust of Winckelmann, which was in turn based on von Maron's drawing; notes the influence on this posthumous portrait of a cast of a classical bust of Cicero in Mengs's possession; lists an engraving after the painting by Carl Paul Landon.

Hellmut Sichtermann in Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie. 10, Munich, 1999, p. 519.

Steffi Roettgen in Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century. Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 2000, pp. 411–12, no. 259, ill. (color), explains how it can only have been painted in or after 1777.

Steffi Roettgen. Mengs: La scoperta del neoclassico. Exh. cat., Palazzo Zabarella. Padua, 2001, p. 298, reaffirms that Mengs did not paint Winckelmann within his friend's lifetime but was inspired by Eugen Wilhelm Doell, who in 1777 was commissioned to make a posthumous bust intended for the Pantheon [Protomoteca Capitolina, Rome].

Katharine Baetjer in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Chefs-d'œuvre de la peinture européenne. Exh. cat., Fondation Pierre Gianadda. Martigny, 2006, pp. 142–46, no. 25, ill. (color, overall and detail) [Catalan ed., Barcelona, 2006, pp. 80–83, no. 20, ill. (color, overall and detail)].

José Beltrán Fortes and Juan Fernández Lacomba in El rescate de la antigüedad clásica en Andalucía. Exh. cat., Hospital de los Venerables. Seville, [2008], p. 185, 216, fig. 80 (color).

Michele Dolz in Timothy Verdon. "Età moderna e contemporanea." L'arte cristiana in italia. 3, Cinisello Balsamo (Milan), 2008, p. 126, fig. 135 (color).

Francesco Petrucci. Pittura di Ritratto a Roma: il Settecento. Rome, 2010, vol. 1, pp. 301, 304, fig. 239 (color); vol. 3, pl. 952.

By 1787 Don José de Azara owned Mengs's portrait of Winckelmann. Azara provided a drawing after the portrait by Bonaventura Salesa (1756–1819), Mengs's follower, which was engraved by Jacques Louis Copia (1764–1799) as the frontispiece to Jansen's 1794 edition of Winckelmann's "Histoire de l'Art chez les Anciens".

While in Rome, Winckelmann was also painted by Peder Als (Danish, 1725–1776), in 1760 (presumed lost); by Angelika Kauffmann (Swiss, 1741–1807), in 1764 (Kunsthaus Zurich); and by Anton von Maron (Austrian, 1733–1808), in 1767 (Kunstsammlungen zu Weimar, Schlossmuseum).