Enlightenment

Johan Zoffany

The Tribuna of the Uffizi

1772–77

Oil on canvas, 48 1/2 × 61 in. Royal Collection

A Florentine gallery room packed with masterpieces and the English visitors admiring them: the Grand Tour as a trophy picture.

Look at

• Copies of real paintings cover the walls frame to frame, each painted small and exact, so the picture is a catalogue.
• The visitors are gathered in clusters around particular works, with the reclining nude held up at lower centre as the focus.
• Strong red walls and heavy gold frames dominate, with the pale statues standing out against them.

• Commissioned by Queen Charlotte; Zoffany changed the room's perspective and added pictures fetched from the Pitti and other Uffizi rooms.
• The crowd of English travellers was later judged unsuitable; the Queen would not hang it in her rooms, and no further royal work came his way.

Grand Tour

the long journey through France and Italy, with Rome as its goal, that wealthy young men made to finish their education.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain