Rosalba Carriera Venice 1675 - 1757

This beautiful pastel, very typical of Rosalba, represents a young lady in Tyrolean costume, wearing an elaborate head-dress, and a tight necklace which complements the silvery-white colour of her embroidered voile shirt.  As Bernardina Sani points out in her monograph on the artist, this subject was often repeated by Rosalba as it was, in her words: prediletto dagli amatori ingelsi (see B. Sani, Rosalba Carriera, Turin 1988, under cat. no. 241).  Sani publishes four other versions of this same subject: one in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden; one at Tatton Park, in Cheshire; one in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; and the last in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.  She writes that due to the frequent requests from English patrons to receive from Rosalba an example of a Tirolese, it is in England that most of these autograph replicas can be found.

Rosalba's agent, Owen Mac Swiney in fact ordered one for the Duke of Richmond (whereabouts currently unknown), and a letter of November 1727 survives, in which this is mentioned.  According to Sani, it is known that Rosalba kept in her studio an example (only a head study) of pastels which she could replicate on request.  The present pastel is of exquisite quality and is certainly not a routine replica.  The label on the frame and on the backing (possibly late 19th century) identifying the sitter as Lady Sophia Fermor does not seem to be accurate as she does not resemble the documented portrait of Lady Sophia painted by Rosalba in Venice in 1714 and now in the collection of the Earl of Shelburne (see Sani, op.cit, no. 68, fig.54).