For many of his contemporaries, he was the greatest living painter: Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779) was court painter to Frederick Augustus II, was accepted into various academies, including those in Rome, Florence, Venice, and Madrid, and was a sought-after portrait painter throughout Europe. The painter spent a significant part of his career in Rome. It was mainly through his contact with the archaeologist and art writer Johann Joachim Winckelmann and his theories that the young Mengs turned away from Rococo and toward early Classicism. In the 1750s and 1760s, Mengs developed into a leading representative of Classicism. His ceiling fresco The Parnassus (completed in 1761) in the Villa Albani in Rome is a key work of this artistic movement. With around 150 works, the Museo del Prado is dedicating its most important solo exhibition to him to date: In addition to oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and sculptures, various manuscripts and analyses introduce visitors to the painter's working methods and provide insights into his relationship with Old Masters such as Raphael and Correggio. The Anton Raphael Mengs exhibition will run from November 25, 2025, to March 1, 2026, in Madrid.
Most of the exhibits come from the Museo del Prado and the Patrimonio Nacional, supplemented by carefully selected national and international loans. Among other things, the exhibition also features Mengs' famous fresco Jupiter Kissing Ganymede (c. 1758/59) from the Galleria Nazionale in Rome. Here, the painter made use of stylistic elements from recently discovered wall paintings in Pompeii. The work was recognized as an ancient original by many experts, including Winckelmann, and it was only years later that Mengs admitted to being the creator himself. The exact reasons behind his deception of antiquities experts are not known.
