Background
His father was a goldsmith of excellent family and early on taught the use of the burin to his boy who, when he was ten years of age, engraved two heads which showed the promise of his talent. In the Florentine Academy he learnt to work in oil, chalks, and aquarelle. Unsurpassed by any artist of his day in his knowledge of anatomy, and with a passion for the antique, young Bartolozzi became a master in depicting beauty of expression, movement, and form.From 1745 until 1751 he studied with Wagner, the Venetian historical engraver. On Cardinal Bottari's invitation went to Rome. Returning to Venice, his fame grew very rapidly. In London he engraved over two thousand plates, nearly all in the stipple or the "red-chalk style", a method recently invented by the French, but brought into vogue and elevated into a distinct art by Bartolozzi.
He devoted himself to the human figure, and his engravings abound in sweet and tender types of beauty, graceful in form and outline. As with these Engravings, after Cipriani, Bartolozzi found delicate modulations of light and shade with a roundness, finish, and suggestion of flesh never before seen in engraved work. Bartolozzi's drawing was superb; and although he was a reproductive artist he improved the work he copied, especially the drawing, even Sir Joshua Reynolds thanking him for such a service.
His pupils called him the "god of drawing". They, too, were reproduced from pictures by others, but the translation always improved on the original.