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Rosalba Carriera (12 January 1673 – 15 April 1757) was an
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
Rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...
painter. In her younger years, she specialized in
portrait miniature A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting from Renaissance art, usually executed in gouache, Watercolor painting, watercolor, or Vitreous enamel, enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illumin ...
s. Carriera would later become known for her
pastel A pastel () is an art medium that consists of powdered pigment and a binder (material), binder. It can exist in a variety of forms, including a stick, a square, a pebble, and a pan of color, among other forms. The pigments used in pastels are ...
portraits, helping popularize the medium in eighteenth-century Europe. She is remembered as one of the most successful women artists of any era.


Biography

Carriera was born in Venice to Andrea Carriera, a lawyer, and Alba Foresti, an embroiderer and lacemaker. With her mother and sisters, Rosalba engaged in lace-making and other crafts. Her reasons for establishing her own studio as an artist remain unknown. An early biographer, Pierre-Jean Mariette, suggested that when the lace industry began to falter, Carriera had to find a new means of providing for herself and her family. The popularity of snuff-taking gave her an opportunity. Carriera began painting miniatures for the lids of snuff-boxes and as independent objects. She was among the first painters to use
ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and Tooth, teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mamm ...
instead of vellum as a support for miniatures. Soon, she also began producing portraits in pastel. Prominent foreign visitors to Venice, such as diplomats and young sons of the nobility on their Grand Tour, sought out her work. The portraits of her early period include those of
Maximilian II of Bavaria Maximilian II (28 November 1811 – 10 March 1864) reigned as King of Bavaria between 1848 and 1864. Unlike his father, King Ludwig I, "King Max" was very popular and took a greater interest in the business of Government than in personal ext ...
;
Frederick IV of Denmark Frederick IV (Danish language, Danish: ''Frederik''; 11 October 1671 – 12 October 1730) was List of Danish monarchs, King of Denmark and List of Norwegian monarchs, Norway from 1699 until his death. Frederick was the son of Christian V of Denma ...
; the "Artist and her Sister Naneta" (Uffizi); and Augustus the Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, who acquired a large collection of her pastels.'' The New International Encyclopedia'' By 1700, Carriera was already painting miniatures and by 1703 she had completed her first pastel portraits. In 1704, she was made an ''Accademico di merito'' by the Roman
Accademia di San Luca The Accademia di San Luca () is an Italian academy of artists in Rome. The establishment of the Accademia de i Pittori e Scultori di Roma was approved by papal brief in 1577, and in 1593 Federico Zuccari became its first ''principe'' or director; ...
, a title reserved for non-Roman painters. Between 1720 and 1721, Carriera worked in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, where her work was in great demand. While in Paris, Carriera was a guest of the great amateur and art collector, Pierre Crozat. She painted Watteau, all the royalty and nobility from the
King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...
and
Regent In a monarchy, a regent () is a person appointed to govern a state because the actual monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge their powers and duties, or the throne is vacant and a new monarch has not yet been dete ...
downwards, and was elected a member of the Académie royale by acclamation. Her brother-in-law, the painter Antonio Pellegrini, married to her sister Angela, was also in Paris that year, and was employed by John Law, a Scottish financier and adventurer, to paint the ceiling of the Grande Salle in Law's new bank building, the Hotel de Nevers. Carriera's other sister, Giovanna, and her mother, accompanied her to France. Both sisters, particularly Giovanna, helped her in painting the hundreds of portraits she was asked to execute. This was because she undertook a lot of work in order to support her family. Carriera's diary of these 18 months in Paris was later published by her devoted admirer, Antonio Zanetti, the Abbé Vianelli, in 1793. Her extensive correspondence has also been published. In the short time she spent in Paris, Carriera's work contributed to forming the new aristocratic tastes of the court and by extension, the tastes of Parisians. No longer did art serve only the monarchy's needs. She injected her free style, sense of colour and charm into the
Rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...
style, to which she was closely associated and which soon dominated the arts. Despite her triumph in Paris, she returned to her home on the Grand Canal in Venice in 1721. Carriera, with her sister Giovanna in tow, visited
Modena Modena (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It has 184,739 inhabitants as of 2025. A town, and seat of an archbis ...
,
Parma Parma (; ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmesan, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,986 inhabitants as of 2025, ...
, and
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, and was received with much enthusiasm by rulers and courts. In 1730, Carriera made a long journey to the royal court in Vienna,
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
. While there, the Emperor Charles VI became her benefactor and fully committed to supporting her work, amassing a large collection of more than 150 of her pastels. In return, Carriera gave the Empress formal artistic training. The works Carriera executed there were later to form the basis of the large collection in the Alte Meister Gallery in
Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...
. After her sister Giovanna's death in 1738, Carriera fell into a deep depression, which was not aided by the loss of her eyesight some years later (her eyes might have been damaged by painting miniatures in her youth). She underwent two unsuccessful
cataract A cataract is a cloudy area in the lens (anatomy), lens of the eye that leads to a visual impairment, decrease in vision of the eye. Cataracts often develop slowly and can affect one or both eyes. Symptoms may include faded colours, blurry or ...
surgeries but ended up losing her eyesight completely. She outlived all her family, spending her last years in a small house in the
Dorsoduro Dorsoduro is one of the six sestiere (Venice), sestieri of Venice, in northern Italy. Dorsoduro includes the highest land areas of the city and also Giudecca island and Isola Sacca Fisola. Its name derives from the Italian language, Italian fo ...
district of Venice, where she died at the age of 84.


Training

Carriera's mother taught her the art of lace making. Her training as a portraitist remains undocumented. It is possible that she studied with Antonio Lazzari, Federico Benecovich, and Giuseppe Diamantini. She may also have been associated with Antonio Balestra, whose work she copied. There is speculation that the French painter Jean Steve encouraged her to make miniatures on ivory for the lids of snuffboxes, and that she received instruction in oil technique from Diamantini. Carriera shared her talents with her sisters Giovana and Angela and later in life had female students such as Marianna Carlevarijs, Margherita Terzi, and Felicità Sartori.


Influence

Carriera's influence would spread widely among many. In 1720 she provided King
Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defi ...
with a portrait that completed the transition from the previously accepted style of the court. It was a shift between what looked powerful and a decorative style with international appeal. She revolutionized the world of technology by binding colored chalk into sticks, which led to the development of a much wider range of prepared colors. This expanded the availability and the usefulness of the pastel medium. Although negatively dubbed ''‘The Rococo’'' by Maurice Quai, a follower of the neoclassicist
Jacques-Louis David Jacques-Louis David (; 30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was a French painter in the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in ...
, Carriera played an important role in popularizing the style in France and later England, where
King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland, Ireland from 25 October 1760 until his death in 1820. The Acts of Union 1800 unified Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and ...
was a major collector of her work. Despite her renown and contribution to an established manner, Carriera is "often treated as an exception, a rarity as a woman artist" and very often ignored. When the Rococo went out of fashion, Carriera's name and her impact was dismissed and that had very much to do with gender as well.
Sir Joshua Reynolds Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter who specialised in portraits. The art critic John Russell (art critic), John Russell called him one of the major European painters of the 18th century, while Lucy P ...
owned several of her pastels.


Works

Carriera was the first female painter to initiate a new style in the art community. The Rococo style emphasized the use of pastel colors; spontaneous brush strokes, dancing lights, subtle surface tonalities and a soft, elegant and charming approach to subject matter. She was known for dragging the sides of white chalk across an under-drawing of darker tones to capture the shimmering texture of lace and satin. She was also able to highlight facial features and the soft cascades of powdered hair. Because of her, artists created work in the style for nearly a century. Carriera had many patrons who were interested in her work. Her earliest known pastel portrait depicts the collector Anton Maria Zanetti (1700) who procured many works by the artist and promoted her to other collectors when he travelled throughout Europe. Joseph Smith was another one of her admirers and he too collected a great amount of her works. King George III later purchased these pieces in 1762. That collection contained one of many of her self-portraits. Her best-known self-portrait is one she contributed to the Medici collection of self-portraits at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. This piece was different because she veered away from idealizing herself, as was a custom of the era. Instead, she was brusque and honest in her representation, featuring a larger nose, thin lips and a deep dimple in her chin. She holds a portrait of her sister and assistant Giovanna, whom she was very close to. Her self-portrait work diverges from typical expectations of women artists of the time by aiming for an unvarnished appearance. One such example is ''Self-Portrait as an Old Woman'' (1746), whose mismatched eyes hint at the eye problems which plagued her in later life. Carriera was not just a portrait painter, even though that was her subject matter of choice due to her profession. She also created a few allegorical pieces, including ''‘The Four Seasons’'', ''‘The Four Elements’'' and ''‘The Four Continents’''. These allegories were represented by beautiful, nymph like and barely clothed women holding symbols that referenced the meaning of the piece.


Gallery

File:Rosalba Carriera Self-portrait3.jpg, File:Rosalba Carriera Self-portrait2.jpg, (Venice) Rosalba Carriera - Self-Portrait - Gallerie Accademia.jpg, File:Rosalba Carriera - Self-Portrait as Winter - WGA04504.jpg, File:Rosalba Carriera - Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Habsburg (1717-1780) - Google Art Project.jpg, File:Portrait de Caterina Sagredo Barbarigo par Rosalba Carriera.jpg, File:Rosalba Carriera - Dame im türkischen Kostüm.jpeg, File:Bemberg Fondation Toulouse - L'été - Rosalba Carriera - inv 1064.jpg, File:Rosalba Carriera - Young Girl Holding a Monkey - WGA04508.jpg, File: (Treviso) The painter Antoine Watteau by Rosalba Carriera - Museo civico di Santa Caterina.jpg, File:Rosalba Carriera - Portrait of the French Consul Le Blond - WGA04493.jpg, File:Philip, Duke of Wharton.png, File:Rosalba Carriera - Africa - Google Art Project.jpg, File:Rosalba Carriera 003.jpg, File:Gustavus Hamilton, 2nd Viscount Boyne.jpg, File:Ca' Rezzonico Sala dei pastelli - Ritratto di gentiluomo in rosso c.1740 - Rosalba Carriera.jpg, File:Rosalba Carriera - Cardinal Melchior de Polignac - WGA4488.jpg, File:Horace Walpole by Rosalba Carriera.jpg,


Legacy

Carriera was best known for her innovative approach to pastels, which had previously been used for informal drawings and preparatory sketches. She was also credited with pastel as a medium for serious portraiture that redefined the Rococo manner."Pastel Masterpiece Unveiled at Institute..." EDCHADWICK. The Free Library. Birmingham Post & Mail Ltd. 4 February 2010. Rosalba Carriera is a character in the novel ''The Laws of Time'' (2019) by Andrea Perego.


References


Resources

* Consult the biographies of Sensier, with translation of her diary (Paris. 1865), Von Hoerschelmann (Leipzig, 1908), and Malamani (Milan, 1910). * Elsa Honig Fine puts Rosalba Carriera in context with other women artists in ''Women and Art: A History of Women Painters and Sculptors from the Renaissance to the 20th Century'' (London & Montclair, 1978). * Sensier's (highly annotated) version of her journal of two years in Paris (1720–1721) is available from two sources on-line in French: *
Journal de Rosalba Carriera pendant son séjour à Paris en 1720 et 1721 / publié en italien par Vianelli; trad., annoté et augm. d'une biographie et de documents inédits sur les artistes et les amateurs du temps, par Alfred Sensier: J. Techener (Paris) 1865
*
Rosalba Carriera, Alfred Sensier, Journal de Rosalba Carriera pendant son séjour à Paris en 1720 et 1721: Publié en italien par Vianelli. Traduit, annoté et augm. dùne biogr. et de documents inédits sur les artistes et les amateurs du temps 1865, Techener


External links


Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, online edition


English translations of the correspondence and diary of Rosalba Carriera in The Frick Collection/Frick Art Reference Library Archives. {{DEFAULTSORT:Carriera, Rosalba 1673 births 1757 deaths People from Chioggia Painters from the Republic of Venice Italian portrait miniaturists 17th-century Italian painters 17th-century women painters 18th-century Italian painters Blind artists Italian pastel artists 17th-century Italian women artists 17th-century Venetian women 18th-century Venetian women Italian women pastel artists 18th-century Italian women painters