Rosalba Carriera Venice 1675 - 1757

Given by the sitter to the von Schmid family;
by descent to Christoph von Schmid (1768 - 1854), Domkapitular of Augsburg;
Father Mäntel;
his estate sale, Dinkelsbühl, 1890 (for 50,000 Goldmk to Prof. Joseph Maier);
thence by descent to the present owner

Maria Amalia (1710-1756), was the daughter of Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor and Amalia-Wilhelmine, Princess of Brunswick-Lüneburg.  She married Karl Albrecht in 1722, who became Prince-Elector of Bavaria in 1726, and later the Holy Roman Emperor Karl VII, the second Emperor from the Wittelsbach family. 

Another portrait of Maria Amalia is in the Residenz, Munich¹, and a portrait formerly at the Residenzschloss, Dresden, catalogued by Sani as Elizabeth of Austria², also appears to depict the Empress, as the sitter's costume and pose are virtually identical.  In her monograph Sani describes the present portrait as depicting an unknown sitter, although suggests tentative identifications as either Amalia-Wilhelmine or Elizabeth of Austria.  We are, however, very grateful to Dr. Gerhard Immler, Director of the Geheimes Hausarchiv at the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, and Herrn Andreas von Majewski, Director of the Inventory Department of the Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds, both in Munich, for their help in correctly identifying the sitter as Empress Maria Amalia.

1. B. Sani, Rosalba Carriera, Turin 1988, cat.no. 262, fig. 229

2. Op. cit., cat.no. 263