Collection: Francesco Bartolozzi   1727 - 1815 

Born in Florence in 1727, Bartolozzi studied at the local Academy of Fine Art. He then moved to Venice and joined the workshop of the noted print-seller Joseph Wagner when he was eighteen, making engravings after the works of contemporary Venetian painters. Bartolozzi would become pre-eminent during his lifetime in the stipple method of engraving and is generally regarded as the greatest proponent of the technique.

Bartolozzi’s prints were greatly appreciated by English patrons visiting Venice, and in 1764 he was commissioned to engrave Guercino’s drawings in the British Royal Collection. Appointed as Engraver to the King, in 1768 he was a founding member of the Royal Academy. Bartolozzi remained in England for thirty-eight years, only leaving to become director of the Academy of Fine Art in Lisbon where he died in 1815.