Giovanni Batista Cipriani was born at Florence, Italy in 1727. His first lessons were given him by a Florentine of English descent, Ignatius Hugford, and he then studied under Anton Domenico Gabbiani. He was in Rome in the period 1750-53, where he became acquainted with Sir William Chambers, the architect, and Joseph Wilton, the sculptor, whom he accompanied to England in August 1755. He had already painted two pictures for the Abbey of San Michele in Pelago, Pistoia, which had laid the basis of his reputation. Upon his arrival in England, he received patronage from Lord Tilney, the Duke of Richmond and other members of the nobility. His acquaintance with Chambers no doubt helped him, for when this architect designed the Albany in London for Lord Holland, Cipriani painted the ceilings, He also painted part of a ceiling in Buckingham House, and a room with poetical subjects at Standlynch in Wiltshire. Among his masterpieces was his work for Somerset House, built by Chambers. He not only prepared the decorations for the interior of the north block, but says Joseph Baretti in his Guide through the Royal Academy (1780), ‘the whole of the carvings in the various fronts of Somerset Place – excepting Bacon’s bronze figures – were carved from finished drawings made by Cipriani.’ These designs include the five masks forming the keystones to the arches on the courtyard side of the vestibule, and the two above the doors leading into the wings of the north block, all of which are believed to have been carved by Joseph Nollekens. The grotesque groups flanking the main doorways on three sides of the quadrangle and the central doorway onto the terrace appear also to have been designed by Cipriani. The apartments in Sir William Chambers’s stately palace that were assigned to the Royal Academy, into which it moved in 1750, owed much to Cipriani. The central panel of the library ceiling was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, but the four compartments in the coves, representing Allegory, Fable, Nature and History, were Cipriani’s. These paintings still remain at Somerset House, together with the emblematic painted ceiling, also his work, of what was then the library of the Royal Society. It was natural that Cipriani should thus devote himself to adorning the apartments of the Academy, since he was an original member in 1768 of that august body, for which he designed the Diploma, which was engraved by his fellow Florentine Bartolozzi. In recognition of his services, the academicians presented him in 1769 with a silver cup with a commemorative inscription. He was much employed by the publishers, for whom he furnished illustrations in pen and ink, sometimes coloured. His friend Bartolozzi engraved most of them. Drawings by Cipriani may be found in both the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum. His best autograph engravings are The Death of Cleopatra, after Benvenuto Cellini; The Descent of the Holy Ghost, after Gabbiani; and portraits for Hollis’s memoirs, 1780. He painted allegorical designs for the Gold State Coach – which was still in use in 1782, and repaired Verrio’s paintings at Windsor and Rubens’s ceiling in the Banqueting House at Whitehall (The Apotheosis of King James). Some of his best work is the decoration of furniture. He designed many groups, of nymphs and amorini and medallion subjects to form the centre of Pergolesi’s bands of ornament, and they were continually reproduced upon the elegant satin-wood furniture which was growing popular in his later days and by the end of the 18th century, became all the rage. Sometimes these designs were inlaid in marquetry, but most frequently they were painted upon the satin-wood by other hands with delightful effect, since in the whole range of English furniture, there is nothing more enchanting than good finished satin-wood pieces. There can be little doubt that some of the furniture designed by the Adams was actually painted by Cipriani himself. Cipriani married an English lady, by whom he had two sons. He was made a Master Mason at the Thatched House Tavern in St James’s Street, London in January 1777 and was a founder member of the Lodge of the Nine Muses, which was formally constituted in 1799. Robert Biggin, the first treasurer of the lodge and a grand steward in 1778, presented a set of jewels to be worn to the officers. The jewels are still in use by the lodge today and were designed by Cipriani. He died at Hammersmith in 1785 and was buried at Chelsea, where his friend Bartolozzi designed and erected a monument to his memory.