Anton Rafael Mengs, a German painter, born at Aussig, Bohemia, March 12, 1728, died in Rome, June 29, 1779. His father, a miniature painter, took him when a child to Dresden, and compelled him to pursue his art studies without relaxation. Young Mengs throve so well under this severe treatment, that in his eighth year he designed a subject from the Aeneid, and at 14 was a skilful painter. In 1741 his father took him to Rome, and compelled him to devote nearly his whole time to the study of the works of Raphael and the old masters in the Vatican, of which he made several copies in miniature for Augustus III. of Poland and Saxony. Returning to Dresden at the end of three years, he was appointed court painter, with permission to return to Rome, where he established his reputation by a holy family, the figure of the Virgin in which was painted from a beautiful peasant girl, whom he subsequently married. In 1749 he was again in Dresden, but in 1751 obtained the permission of the elector to return to Rome. Here he undertook the direction of the new academy of art.

Among the works which he executed in the next few years were a copy of Raphael's " School of Athens" for Lord Percy, afterward duke of Northumberland, the frescoes in the church of San Euse-bio (1757), and those of "Apollo and the Mu-ses on Parnassus" in the villa Albani, which were engraved by Raphael Morghen. The king of Naples, on succeeding to the throne of Spain as Charles III., invited him in 1761 to Madrid, where he executed a number of works in the royal palace, including his "Aurora." In 1770 he again went to Italy, where he executed a great allegorical screen painting. After three years he returned to Madrid, and produced several works, including his masterpiece, the " Apotheosis of Trajan." On a visit to Monaco he painted his picture of the "Nativity." In 1770 he returned to Rome for the last time. His merits have been much exaggerated by his friends, and quite as much underrated by others. As a theorist and writer on art he is still a standard authority, and his remarks on the antique and criticisms of the works of the old masters were highly esteemed by the artists of his own age as well as by Winckelmann, Lanzi, and other eminent critics and historians of art.

His writings were published under the title Opere rfi Anion,,, Unffaelle Mengs (Parma, 1780), and have been translated into Spanish, German, English, and French.