Pietro Benvenuti began his training in 1781 at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. From 1792, he stayed in Rome, where one of his commissions was a painting for the cathedral of his home town Arezzo. During the French occupation of Italy (1796-1814), Benvenuti was extremely successful: he was friends with Antonio Canova, and, through his recommendation, he became court painter to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Napoleon's sister Elisa. She appointed Benvenuti director of the Academy in Florence in 1803. Benvenuti's austere neoclassical style appealed to Napoleon, who commissioned him to execute a depiction of his victory in the Battle of Jena in 1809. Today, the large-format painting is on display in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. In addition to histories, Benvenuti painted portraits, including Elisa Bonaparte and her court. In this group portrait, Benvenuti's friend Antonio Canova is also depicted. From the 1820s, after the end of Napoleonic rule, Benvenuti painted several dome frescoes for the returned Lorraine rulers in Tuscany, including in the Salon of Hercules of the Palazzo Pitti and in the Chapel of the Princes at the Basilica of San Lorenzo.