c. 1800

Virgil and the Muse of Poetry

One of the rare internationally known women artists of her time, Swiss-born Kauffmann enjoyed a successful career in London, Rome, Florence, and Naples, not only as a portraitist but also in the intellectually more demanding field of historical and mythological painting. This drawing shows the Roman national poet Virgil-whose pastoral poems the Bucolics refer to his own rustic roots-at his farm with his beehives in the background.