Miss Angel

One of the most successful women artists in history, Angelica Kauffman became the toast of Georgian England, captivating society with her portraits, mythological scenes, and decorative compositions. She knew and painted poets, novelists and playwrights, collaborating with them and illustrating their work; her designs adorned the houses of the Grand Tourists she had met in Italy; actors, statesmen, philosophers, kings and queen sat to her; and she was the force that launched a thousand engravings. Despite rumors of relationships with other artists and an apparently bigamous and annulled first marriage to a pseudo Count, Kauffman was adopted by royalty in England and abroad as a model of social and artistic decorum. Kauffman's life and work is full of apparent contradictions explored in this first biography in over 80 years.