CIPRIANI, Giovanni Battista (1727-1785), painter and draughtsman, was of Pistoian descent, but was born at Florence, where he studied design and colour under Heckford and Gabbiani. After painting several pictures at Pistoia and elsewhere, Cipriani, who had contracted a friendship with Bartolozzi, the eminent engraver, quitted Florence for London. There he worked for the duke of Richmond and other noblemen and gentlemen, repaired the Rubens ceiling in Whitehall Chapel, and the Verrio frescoes at Windsor, and decorated in part the Royal Academy library. His drawings, which are better than his paintings, engraved by Bartolozzi and his pupils, achieved a wide popularity, and were bought up eagerly all over Europe; but his reputation is nowadays somewhat faded.