Around the middle of the 18th century, Anton Raphael Mengs was the most famous painter in Europe. Born in Bohemia, Mengs was just 18 when he was appointed Court Painter to Augustus III, Elector of Saxony. By 23, he was promoted to Principal Painter. Six months after that, Mengs left for Italy. In Rome, the art of antiquity shaped his vision for Neoclassicism, and he began to shift from the bloodiness of the Baroque and the frivolity of Rococo towards polished symmetry, balance, and moderation. At 33, now a wildly successful painter, Mengs entered the service of Charles III of Spain, taking charge of the decorations of the Palacio Real in Madrid. He outshone his rival Tiepolo and taught Goya, and his treatise on art reverberated across the continent. Yet shortly after his death in 1779, Mengs’s reputation went into an eclipse from which it’s never really recovered. This exhibition at the Prado explains his fall and jumpstarts a modern reappraisal. —Harry Seymour