Born on this day in 1673 was the great Venetian pastel portraitist Rosalba Carriera, one of the most talented and successful women artists of her time. Her best works demonstrate a mastery of subtle tonalities and exquisitely rendered textures, drawn in free, spontaneous strokes, using pastels made to her own innovative formulations. Her informal, very direct self-portraits are among her best work. The one above, showing her holding a portrait of her beloved sister and companion Giovanna, hangs in the portrait gallery of the Uffizi. Giovanna's death in 1738 sent Rosalba into a deep depression, but she continued working until her eyesight failed in the mid-1740s. One of her last self-portraits [below], which she gave to the British consul in Venice, Joseph Smith, is in the Royal Collection, where I remember seeing it a few years back in an exhibition at the Queen's Gallery. Sadly, Carriera, after her glittering career, died blind and alone in Venice in 1757, having outlived all her family.
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