Born: 7 October 1675, Italy
Died: 15 April 1757
Country most active: Italy
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women, written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company.
Rosalba Carrier, an Italian miniature and portrait painter. She was born in Venice, and at first learned lace making from her mother, but later applied herself to the decoration of snuff-boxes under Jean Steve.
After studying miniature and pastel with unimportant local masters, she soon became celebrated throughout Italy.
In 1720 she visited Paris and painted portraits of Watteau, the Regent, young Louis XV, and the nobles and ladies of the court. She was elected a member of the Academy by acclimation, and while in Paris kept a diary which gives a most entertaining account of her visit there.
She returned to Italy in 1721 and was everywhere received with enthusiasm by rulers and courts. Esteemed as the greatest miniature and pastel painter of her day, her works were compared with those of Correggio. They are delicate in handling and color, graceful in design and vivacious in expression, but often inaccurate in drawing.
Towards the end of her life she became blind through overwork, and died insane.
Her art is represented in many private collections and nearly all the public galleries of Europe.
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Born in a century during which life and art wore a brilliant superficiality and often lacked in good taste, she brought to the art of color a vivacity, a strength, and a correctness of drawing unapparent throiigh the great naturalness of her portraits. A disciple of the famous pastel painter, Giann Antonio Lazzari, she was not content to surpass him, but continued to improve her craft so as to imitate with pastels the flow and relief of oil colors. After these brilliant attainments, she traveled to Rome, Florence, France, and England. Her masterpieces are a portrait of Lady Basso (a poet’s wife), and a portrait of herself. As she had once painted herself with a wreath of leaves around her head, some friends asked her the reason for this ornament. She answered them that this garland was an attribute of classical tragedy, and that they were to wait till the end of her life to see the reason of it. In fact, during her last years, she completely lost sight and reason, and died after Jong sufferings, in Venice.
The following is excerpted from A Cyclopædia of Female Biography, published 1857 by Groomsbridge and Sons and edited by Henry Gardiner Adams.
ROSALBA, CARRIERA, Was born in 1676, at Chiozza, near Venice; and was instructed by Giovanni Diamentini, from whom she learned design, and also the art of painting in oil. In that kind of colouring, she copied several of the best masters; but at last applied herself to miniature with extraordinary diligence, being ambitious to arrive at such a degree of perfection In it as might enable her to contribute to the support of her parents. She succeeded to her wish; but after practising miniature-painting with great reputation, she quitted it for crayons, which art she carried to a degree of perfection that few artists have ever been able to attain. In 1709, Frederic the Fourth, King of Denmark, passing through Venice, sat to Rosalba for his portrait, of which, by his order, she made several copies, very highly finished. Soon after, the same monarch employed her to paint twelve portraits of Venetian ladies, which she performed so much to his satisfaction, that he showed her particular marks of his favour, and, besides gifts of great value, paid her with a truly royal munificence. She visited France in company with Pelligrini, who had married her sister; and at Paris had the honour to paint the royal family, with most of the nobility, and other persons of distinction. During her residence there, she was admitted into the academy, to which she presented a picture of one of the muses. On her return to Venice, she continued her profession until she was seventy, when, by incessant application, she lost her sight. She died in 1757. The portraits of Rosalba are full of life and spirit, exceedingly natural, with an agreeable resemblance to the persons represented. Her colouring is soft, tender, and delicate; her tints clear and well united; and she generally gave a graceful torn to the heads, especially to those of her female figures.