son of Anton Franz Zauffaly, Court Cabinetmaker and Architect in Regensburg to Alexander Ferdinand, Prince of Thurn und Taxis
apprenticed to painter and engraver Marin Speer; with portrait painter Agostino Masucci (1750, Rome)
1757 – Clemens August, Prince-Archbishop and Elector of Trier commissions frescoes
1760s – employed by Stephen Rimbault painting clock faces; works for theatrical set painter Benjamin Wilson; commissions from actor David Garrick for theatrical “conversation pieces”
1762 – exhibits paintings made for Garrick at Society of Artists (London); engravings establish Zoffany’s fame
1769 – nominated to Royal Academy by George III (King of England)
1772 –travels to Florence to work on commission from Queen Charlotte (England), Tribuna of the Uffizi (Royal Collection, Windsor Castle)
1773 – elected member of Reale Accademia delle Belle Arti (Florence)
1774 – elected member of Accademia Clementina (Bologna)
1776 – elected member of Accademia Etrusca (Cortona); created Baron of the Holy Roman Empire based on series of family portraits (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) painted for Grand Duke Leopold
1778 – elected member of Accademia di Belle Arti (Parma)
Rome (1750, 1757); London (1760-72; 1779-83; 1789-); India (1783-89); Florence (1772-79)
David Garrick; Samuel Foote; George III and Charlotte (King and Queen of England); Grand Duke Leopold, later Leopold I (Emperor of Austria and Holy Roman Emperor); Warren Hastings, Governor-General of Bengal
Life Class at the Royal Academy, 1771-72 (Royal Collection, Windsor Castle)
Tribuna of the Uffizi, 1771-78 (Royal Collection, Windsor Castle)
Pollock, Griselda. “Cockfights and Other Parades: Gesture, Difference, and the Staging of; Meaning in Three Paintings by Zoffany, Pollock, and Krasner,” Oxford Art Journal, vol. 26, no. 2 (2003): 141-66
Treadwell, Penelope. Johan Zoffany: Artist and Adventurer. London: Paul Holberton, 2009
Webster, Mary, and Johann Zoffany. Johan Zoffany, 1733-1810. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011