Allegory of Peace and War

A personification of peace, bearing an olive branch, restrains the god Mars in a composition that pairs the softness of the Rococo with the newly fashionable Neoclassical manner. Pompeo Batoni, the leading Roman painter of his day, painted the picture on his own initiative and without a commission, and it attracted critical praise for its graceful invention; it belongs to the group of allegories and mythologies in which Batoni, famed above all for grand portraits of Grand Tour travelers, gave freer rein to a lighter, more inventive side of his art. The canvas remained in the artist’s studio from 1776 until at least 1781, descended through the d’Oultremont and von Fürstenberg families of Brussels, and was acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998 as a gift of the Old Masters Society. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.