Rosalba Carriera
Italian, 1673-1757
Portrait of a Woman
around 1720s
pastel on blue paper
Art Gallery of Ontario, purchased as a gift from Mrs. Walter Gordon, 1995
This pastel work is hung in portrait orientation is 12 inches tall by 10 inches wide. It is a portrait of the head and shoulders of a young looking white woman who wears jewelry and has wavy wisps of silver hair which have been arranged in an off the shoulders style. The image is framed in an ornate gold gilded wood frame with rounded corners. It has carved flowers and foliage along its edges and a tall intricately carved decorative element at the top. Between the frame and the painting is a white mat border. The work is pastel which is a tint. Pastels contain a significant amount of white mixed into the original shade.
The woman shows more of the right side of her face. Her head is turned slightly to the left with her eyes which are grey and glassy looking slightly to the left. Her lips are slightly upturned in a faint smile. She wears a large blue and pewter gray hair barrette on the top right of her gently wavy updo. She wears large ish earrings that have the shape of three teardrops, a larger one in centre and smaller ones on the sides. They appear to be ornate and are also a pewter gray colour. Around her neck is a string of large pearls leading down to the top of a large ornate pewter pendant that is cut off by the bottom edge of the painting. The necklace has been arranged so that the pendant is close to her right shoulder. Around her shoulders, which are cut off by the sides of the painting, is a light shawl of blue organza fabric.
The intensity of colour in this work is quite dynamic. Her eye pupils are a crisp dark black as are some of the jewelry details, the majority of the work's colours are muted and the details have a soft aspect to them. The background behind her is a medium gray except where it catches light from an unseen source in front of her at her right which causes the background to her right to be lighter. This same light also washes out the colour of her already pale skin and makes it so her jawline on the right side is barely perceptible. On the right of the pastel work the silvery gray of the woman’s hair almost blends with the gray of the background.
Exhibition label text:
Soft colours, a bust-length format, and velvety textures are hallmarks of Rosaba Carriera’s pastels. Her handling of both dry and wet pigments, often applied with a brush, creates a figure that somehow appears both realistic and artificial.
Born in Venice, Carriera began her career producing delicate watercolour miniatures on ivory. These were often used as snuffbox lids, popular with travellers on the Grand Tour. It was her innovative contributions to the medium of pastel, however, that amplified her reputation on an international scale. Carriera took various commissions for portraits and allegorical figures from visitors to her studio in Venice as well as at courts throughout Europe.