Beauty Directed by Prudence rejects with Scorn the Solicitations of Folly

Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807)

Angelica Kauffmann. Ca 1780. Oil on canvas

The pair of paintings at the Kadriorg Art Museum was commissioned by Ann Bryer, widow to the British engraving publisher Henry Bryer. She employed the French artist Jean-Marie Delattre (1745–1840) to produce engravings of the paintings, and issued them in 1783–1784. The prints made Kauffmann’s depiction of Beauty and Prudence widely known, and it became a repeatedly used pictorial model in applied art: plates and vases with the same motif can be found among the products of various European porcelain factories from the 1790s to the beginning of the 20th century.

Beauty Directed by Prudence, Wreathed by Perfection

Ca 1780. Oil on canvas

Angelica Kauffmann is one of the most interesting and well-known female artists of the 18th century. She lived and created her art during the decades that are marked in history by the awakening of the European bourgeoisie and the French Revolution, i.e. the Age of Enlightenment. Kauffmann’s art is an excellent example of the values that prevailed in those years: she depicted sentimental characters from British literature, grieving antique heroines and beautiful ladies in the roles of Love, Prudence, Beauty and other virtues.

Graphic prints enabled Kauffmann’s sentimental scenes to spread all over Europe and America; characters from her paintings were printed on ladies’ fans, porcelain and as embroidery patterns on silk cloth.

Beauty Directed by Prudence, Rejects with Scorn the Solicitations of Folly

Jean-Marie Delattre (1745–1840) after Angelica Kauffmann. 1783. Stipple engraving. The British Museum, London

Vase with a scene from "Beauty Directed by Prudence, Wreathed by Perfection"

Porcelain Manufactory in Potschappel. Turn of the 19th–20th centuries. Porcelain, on-glaze decoration. Kadriorg Art Museum