Historical Archives & Public Figures

Jean-Honoré Fragonard

France

1732 – 1806 (74 years old)

French Rococo master painter whose exuberant, fluid brushwork and playful romantic masterworks like 'The Swing' (L'Escarpolette) captured the joie de vivre of the Ancien Régime.

Paris, France

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Luigi Boccherini

Ridolfo Luigi Boccherini

Republic of Lucca

1743 – 1805 (62 years old)

Italian Classical composer and cello virtuoso celebrated for his courtly galant chamber music, pioneering string quintets, and the immortal 'Minuet' from String Quintet Op. 11, No. 5.

Madrid, Spain

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Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

Giandomenico Tiepolo

Italy

1727 – 1804 (76 years old)

Venetian master painter and son of Giambattista Tiepolo whose witty, theatrical frescoes of Pulcinella and Carnival scenes captured the whimsical collapse of the Venetian Republic.

Venice, Italy

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George Romney

Great Britain

1734 – 1802 (67 years old)

Prominent English society portrait painter of the Georgian era celebrated for his fashionable society sitters and dozens of luminous, idealized portraits of Emma Hamilton.

Kendal, United Kingdom

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Francesco Lazzaro Guardi

Francesco Guardi

Italy

1712 – 1793 (80 years old)

Last great master of the Venetian veduta whose shimmering, painterly brushwork (pittura di tocco) and poetic capriccios anticipated 19th-century Impressionism.

Venice, Italy

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Sir Joshua Reynolds

Joshua Reynolds

Great Britain

1723 – 1792 (68 years old)

First President of the Royal Academy of Arts whose 'Discourses on Art' championed the 'Grand Style' and who elevated British portraiture to heroic neoclassical dignity.

London, United Kingdom

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Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart

Arts & Music

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Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Austria

27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791 (35 years old)

Transcendent child prodigy and supreme musical genius whose unmatched elegance, dramatic psychology, and melodic perfection across over 600 works—including Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, and the Requiem—define the peak of Classical music.

Vienna, Austria

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Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Saxe-Weimar

1714 – 1788 (74 years old)

Second surviving son of J.S. Bach, court harpsichordist to Frederick the Great, pioneer of the dramatic Empfindsamer Stil, and primary musical influence on Haydn and Mozart.

Hamburg, Free Imperial City of Hamburg

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Thomas Gainsborough

Great Britain

1727 – 1788 (61 years old)

Founding member of the Royal Academy and master portraitist whose 'The Blue Boy' and lyrical landscapes captured British elegance with feathery brushstrokes and natural ease.

London, United Kingdom

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Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck

Germany

1714 – 1787 (73 years old)

Bohemian-German composer who reformed classical opera, subordinating vocal display to dramatic truth and theatrical unity.

Vienna, Austria

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Johann Christian Bach

Saxony

1735 – 1782 (46 years old)

Youngest son of J.S. Bach, known as the 'London Bach', who pioneered the Classical symphonic style, established public subscription concerts, and was a formative mentor to young Mozart.

London, Great Britain

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Bernardo Bellotto

Italy

1722 – 1780 (58 years old)

Venetian view painter, nephew and pupil of Canaletto, whose hyper-realistic, dark-toned urban landscapes of Dresden, Vienna, and Warsaw were used to rebuild historic Warsaw after WWII.

Warsaw, Poland

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Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin

Jean Siméon Chardin

France

1699 – 1779 (80 years old)

Supreme French painter of quiet domestic genre scenes and still lifes whose tactile realism, soft natural light, and works like 'The Ray' and 'The Brioche' captivated Diderot.

Paris, France

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François Boucher

France

1703 – 1770 (66 years old)

Premier French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer whose pastoral mythologies, sensuous pastels, and portraits of Madame de Pompadour epitomized the elegance of Louis XV.

Paris, France

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Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Giambattista Tiepolo

Italy

1696 – 1770 (74 years old)

Supreme decorative fresco genius of the 18th century whose breathtaking ceiling in the Würzburg Residenz created the largest continuous ceiling fresco in the world.

Madrid, Spain

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Giovanni Antonio Canal

Canaletto

Italy

1697 – 1768 (70 years old)

Foremost Venetian veduta (view) painter whose sparkling, geometrically precise paintings of the Grand Canal and London palaces defined the visual souvenir of the Grand Tour.

Venice, Italy

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William Hogarth

Great Britain

1697 – 1764 (66 years old)

English pictorial satirist, painter, and pioneer of comic strips whose moral narrative series 'A Rake's Progress' and 'Marriage A-la-Mode' exposed 18th-century corruption.

London, United Kingdom

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