Rosalba Carriera
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Rosalba Carriera (October 7, 1675 – April 15, 1757) was a Venetian painter. In her younger years, she specialized in portrait miniatures. She later became known for her pastel work.
Rosalba was one of the most influential artists of her generation, greatly admired and copied, and in such great demand by her patrons that she was almost unable to cope with the demand. Yet she is almost unknown today. Her family was from the lower middle-class in Venice and as a child she began her artistic career by making lace-patterns for her mother, who was engaged in that trade.
With the popularity of snuff-taking, she saw an opening in painting miniatures for the lids of snuff-boxes, and was the first painter to use ivory for this purpose. Gradually this developed into portrait-painting, for which she was the first person to make exclusive use of pastel. All the foreign visitors to Venice, young sons of the nobility on the grand tour, diplomats, etc., clamoured for her to paint them. By the time she made her first trip abroad, to Paris, in 1721, she was the artist everyone wanted to paint their portrait. Whilst in Paris, as a guest of the great amateur and art collector, Pierre Crozat. She painted all the royalty and nobility from the King and Regent downwards. She was the sister-in-law of the painter Antonio Pellegrini, married to her sister Angela, who were also in Paris in that year. Pellegrini was employed by John Law, the financier and adventurer, to paint the ceiling of the Grand Salle in Law's new Bank building. Rosalba's other sister, Giovanna, and her mother, were part of the party, and both sisters, although in particular, Giovanna, helped Rosalba in painting the hundreds of portraits she was asked to do. She kept a diary of the 18 months she resided in Paris which was later published by her devoted admirer, Signor Antonio Zanetti.
In later life, she made another long journey to the court of the king of Poland where amongst other things she took the Queen as her pupil. The king made a huge collection of Rosalba's works which were later to form the basis of the large collection in the Altemeister Gallery in Dresden.
Returned to Venice, Rosalba was still hugely popular and in great demand, and was in effect the wage-earner of her family. Her portraits were practised and immensely competent, almost always consisting of a bust length pose, with the body turned slightly away and the head turned to face the viewer. She had a marvellous ability to represent textures and patterns, faithfully re-creating fabrics, gold braid, lace, furs, jewels, hair and skin, and showing off all the sumptuous life-style of her rich and influential patrons.
In her person, Rosalba was not a beautiful woman, her self-portraits show a homely face with a large and unshapely nose. She was known for the sweetness of her disposition and the neatness and propriety of her dress, but she was also prone to sadness and depression throughout her life, a propensity which has been attributed to the fact that she never married. In Cornwall, there is a portrait of the son of a family in which a love-letter from Rosalba to the sitter is reputed to have been hidden behind the frame. She had many male friends and admirers of her talent but none of them wanted to marry her.
The last years of Rosalba's long life were truly tragic, as her sight, which had probably been damaged by miniature-painting in her youth, deserted her completely and she went blind. She endured two cataract operations but to no avail. Rosalba outlived all her family, spending her last years in the little house in the Dorso-Duro area of Venice where she had spent all her life.
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