Rosalba Carriera

Rosalba Carriera (12 January 1673 – 15 April 1757) was an Italian Rococo painter. In her younger years, she specialized in portrait miniatures. Carriera would later become known for her pastel portraits, helping popularize the medium in eighteenth-century Europe. She is remembered as one of the most successful women artists of any era.

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 instead of vellum as a support for miniatures. Soon, she also began producing portraits in pastel.