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Notes
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Batoni often drew from a live model when preparing his paintings: perhaps the aged face of the balding and bearded Time, and the wrinkled complexion and leathery, tanned skin of Old Age were inspired by the models who sat to him. Equally, though, the classical art that surrounded Batoni in Rome was a major influence on his work: here, both Time and Beauty’s poses are based on classical statues. Time’s wings seem to emulate the soft texture of feathers as well as the hard stone of a sculpture.
This work and its companion piece An Allegory of Lasciviousness (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) were commissioned by Bartolomeo Talenti, one of several noblemen from Lucca who supported Batoni’s early career during the early 1740s.
Title
Time orders Old Age to destroy Beauty
Date
1746
Medium
Oil on canvas
Measurements
H 135.3 x W 96.5 cm
Accession number
NG6316
Acquisition method
Bought, 1961
Work type
Painting
The National Gallery, London
Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England
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John Chetwynd, 1st Earl Talbot (1750–1793) Ingestre Hall Residential Arts Centre -
Mrs Robert Sandilands English Heritage, Kenwood -
Edward Howard (1744–1767) Victoria and Albert Museum -
Sir Thomas Gascoigne (1745–1810), 8th Bt Lotherton Hall, Leeds Museums and Galleries -
David Garrick Ashmolean Museum, Oxford -
Henry Bankes II (1757–1834), MP National Trust, Kingston Lacy -
Saint James the Less National Trust, Basildon Park - 72 more