He was regarded in Italy as a great painter in the 18th century, and unquestionably did much to rescue the art from the intense mannerism into which it had fallen during the preceding century. His paintings, however, are not of the highest order of merit, though they are generally graceful, well designed, and harmoniously coloured.
His best production is thought to be his group of "Peace and War." Batoni painted an unusual number of pictures, and was also celebrated for his portraits.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopędia Britannica.
Batoni, like most illustrators of the theme, has shown Delilah herself holding the scissors and summoning the Philistines outside her chamber.
Batoni produced few history paintings during the decade of the 1760s, and these were generally large and extremely expensive.
Each canvas represented a major effort on Batoni's part, and normally at this stage of his career such pictures were commissioned exclusively by the Church, European sovereigns and visiting nobility, and the occasional British Grand Tourist.
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