Mengs

Mengs, ANTON RAPHAEL, artist and writer on art, was born at Aussig, in Bohemia, March 12, 1728. His father, Israel Mengs, was himself a painter, and from him young Raphael received his first instructions in art. At the age of thirteen he went to Rome, where he remained three years. On his return to Dresden, in 1744, he was appointed court-painter to the king of Poland and Saxony, but was not prevented from living at Rome, where he became a Catholic and married. In 1754 he became director of the school of painting of the Capitol. After three years he visited Spain. To this period belongs his most celebrated effort; it represents the Apotheosis of the Emperor Trajan, and is executed on the dome of the grand saloon in the royal palace at Madrid. He returned again to Rome in 1776, where he died 29th June 1779. He was a learned and scholarly painter, but his works, though lofty in their subjects, seldom exhibit more than a correct and cultivated taste. His writings were edited in 1780.