Detail View: Visual Resources Teaching Collection: Self-Portrait as Winter

aahi0000352

Self-Portrait as Winter

detail with head, hair, fur, jewelry

18th century

creation

Rosalba Carriera (Italian, 1675-1757)

female

Italian pastellist and painter. She was a daughter of Andrea Carriera, who worked in the mainland podesteria of the Republic of Venice, and of Alba Foresti, an embroiderer. She had two sisters: Angela, who married the painter Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, and Giovanna, who, like Rosalba herself, never married. Pier Caterino Zeno (see Campori, 1886) and other, anonymous sources recorded that she was a pupil of Giuseppe Diamantini; according to Mariette, she originally painted snuff-boxes and later became a pupil of Federico Bencovich. There are more precise records of her life and of some of her works from 1700 onwards, when she started keeping the letters she received and rough copies of those she sent (Florence, Bib. Medicea-Laurenziana, MS. Ashburnham 1781). During the early years of the century Carriera painted mainly miniature portraits on small pieces of oval-shaped ivory (e.g. Mrs Summers; London, V&A), which were often intended to adorn the inside of snuff-box lids. However, the portrait of Antonio Maria Zanetti (Stockholm, Nmus.), painted when Zanetti was no more than 20 years old, proves that she was already producing the pastel portraits for which she would become most renowned. Her international clientele, composed principally of British, French and German travellers, provided her with a lifelong source of commissions for miniature portraits for snuff-box lids or medallions, cabinet paintings and portraits in pastel. As a result of the interest of Christian Cole, secretary to Charles Montagu, 1st Duke of Manchester (then ambassador extraordinary in Venice), Carriera was admitted to the Accademia di S Luca in Rome on 27 September 1705, submitting the Girl with Dove (Rome, Accad. N. S Luca) as her reception piece. Carlo Maratti, principal of the Accademia, much admired this miniature, the undulating brushstrokes of which are reminiscent of Pellegrini's Rococo style. A number of Carriera's early miniatures, such as the Flute-player, Woman Playing the Harpsichord and Lady Cutting her Hair (all St Petersburg, Hermitage), take women's everyday activities as their subject; others, for example Flora (Munich, Bayer. Nmus.) and Venus and Cupid (Copenhagen, Kon. Dan. Kstakad.), explore mythological themes connected with women's lives. There are rather fewer portraits of men. Around 1708 Carriera painted a pastel Self-portrait (Florence, Uffizi) for the collection of artists' self-portraits belonging to the Grand Duke Cosimo III de' Medici. This work, which is mentioned in a letter of 1709, was painted in a style similar to that of the French pastellist Joseph Vivien. From 1711 to 1720 she brought a more personal style to her pastel portraits, with more delicate and subtly blended colours, the drawing less marked and facial expressions more indicative of the subject's psychological state. Although they could be categorized as official State portraits, her depictions of aristocrats are distinguished by their lack of severity, as can be seen in her Portrait of a Man in Armour (Dresden, Gemäldegal. Alte Meister), which may be identified as Augustus III of Poland (Sani, 1988), and in her portrait of Philip, Duke of Wharton (London, Buckingham Pal., Royal Col.). In this ten-year period Carriera came into contact with the French painter Nicolas Vleughels, the important connoisseur of prints and drawings Pierre-Jean Mariette and the collector Pierre Crozat, who invited her to Paris. On 14 January 1720 she was admitted to the Accademia Clementina in Bologna and in March that year went to Paris with Pellegrini, who had been commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Banque Royale (1720–21; destr.). While in Paris, Carriera was Crozat's guest at his house in the Rue de Richelieu. Her visit, which lasted until 11 March 1721, was a triumphant success. She painted portraits of Louis XV as a Child (versions, Dresden, Gemäldegal. Alte Meister, see fig.; Boston, MA, Mus. F.A.) in pastel and also in miniature, as mentioned in her diary. Her sitters also included some of the most fashionable ladies at the French court; her portrait of Mlle de Clermont (Chantilly, Mus. Condé) is among the few of these paintings that survive. She made friends with many of the artists living in Paris, including Hyacinthe Rigaud, Nicolas de Largillierre, Jean-François de Troy and Antoine Watteau, who was impressed by her miniatures and exerted great influence on her work. On 26 October 1721 she was received (reçue) into the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture with the Nymph of the Train of Apollo (Paris, Louvre) as her morceau de réception. At this time her work became increasingly mature and refined; her ability to give deeper expression to faces is exemplified in the portrait of ?Antoine Watteau (1720; Treviso, Mus. Civ. Bailo). After her return to Italy, Carriera was invited in 1723 to the Este court at Modena, where she painted portraits of each of the three daughters of Duke Rinaldo d'Este (versions of each, Dresden, Gemäldegal. Alte Meister; Florence, Uffizi; Munich, Residenz). She also gained an important patron in Joseph Smith, the British consul in Venice, who bought a considerable amount of her work, part of which was later acquired by George III for the royal collections in England. In 1730 Carriera left Italy again, this time for Vienna, where Pellegrini had been summoned to paint the cupola of the Salesian church. While there she made portraits of the Empress Amalia (Munich, Residenz; Dresden, Gemäldegal. Alte Meister) and of the poet and librettist Pietro Metastasio (Dresden, Gemäldegal. Alte Meister). These works represent a new stage in her development, in which she brought out the more austere characteristics of her sitters, with less emphasis on Rococo playfulness. In later years Carriera underwent an eye operation, but this did not, apparently, interfere seriously with her painting. She continued to receive important sitters and was also commissioned to paint a series of the Four Elements for Frederick-Augustus II, Elector of Saxony (Augustus III of Poland from 1733), with whom she had contact through Francesco Algarotti. Augustus was the leading collector of her pastels; his gallery in Dresden, described by 18th-century sources as one of the wonders of the age, contained more than 100 of them in the Rosalba Room. His son Frederick-Christian (1722–63) added Carriera's miniatures to the collection. Most of these works were either sold by the Dresden Gemäldegalerie or destroyed in World War II. (Grove Art Online Accessed 2006-07-25)

18th century

Italian Renaissance-Baroque styles

Rococo

women (female humans)

ermine

winter

allegories

self-portraits

pastels (visual works)

drawings

pastel

46.5 cm (H) x 34 cm (W)

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

repository

P29

accession

Dresden, Germany

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