Kauffmann began in England as a fashionable portraitist, but then devoted herself more to historical scenes and also did decorative work for Robert Adam and other architects. Although her work owes much to the Neoclassical tradition, it has a prettiness that can be described as Rococo. At its best it has great charm, but it can be rather insipid, and she was much more successful with ladylike decorative vignettes than with scenes from Homer or Shakespeare. In 1767 she married an unscrupulous adventurer from whom she was quickly estranged. Following his death in 1780 she married the decorative painter Antonio Zucchi (1726–95) and settled with him in Italy, where she continued her successful career, mainly in Rome.