Portrait of Anton Raphael Mengs

This signed bust is one of the known realizations of this portrait of Mengs. Hewetson may have begun work on it in spring 1779, when he met the painter in his studio. The meeting took place in the company of Mengs’s friend, the diplomat José Nicolás de Azara. The first execution of the portrait is a bust in the Promoteca Capitolina in Rome. It cannot be ruled out that the Prague bust is identical with the bust that was housed in 1927 in Vienna. Originally from Ireland, Hewetson moved to Rome in 1765, where until his death he was professionally active as a portraitist of the Roman society and of English visitors to Rome.