September 16, 2019 • 26 mins
Venetian portraitist Carriera achieved a surprising level of success in the male-dominated European art world of the early 1700s. Her work helped popularize pastels and her portraits were commissioned by Europe's most prominent figures.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. Tracy,
everybody knows that I waxed rapsodic all the time about
(00:22):
she is one of my very favorite artists. This is
not about her, but she's kind of loosely tied to it.
We haven't featured an artist biography in a minute, and
I love them. So today we're going to talk about
someone who was actually one of le Bron's influences, and
that is Rosalba Carriera, who had been on my list
for a bit, and then she also came up in
a discussion that Tracy and I were having recently. We
(00:44):
are also coming up on her birthday, so it kind
of seemed like a good time to talk about her
surprising level of success in the male dominated European art
world of the early seventeen hundreds. It's a little surprising
because most people don't really know about her unless they
study art history. She's not one of like the great
painters that you get the list of in a standard
art class um, and much of what we know about
(01:05):
the particulars of Cadeta's life come from her diary, which
was initially published in seventee. That was almost forty years
after she died, and since she was pretty clearly not
intending for that diary to be a published biography, her
life story has largely been pieced together through the notes
that she was taking in that diary on her daily life,
and some of those are fairly inconsistent in terms of
(01:27):
like how she listed her commissions and their status is
and their payments. So really it was like if you
have a checklist or some sort of journal where you
keep track of what's going on in your day. Imagine
if that got published as your life story, probably people
would think you or maybe disorganized or just inconsistent, but
I think most people are. For example, she had a
(01:48):
system of marking things, but it seemed to change and evolve,
and there are some notations that no one's really decided
yet exactly what they meant, whether they included like sitting time,
or it was like a system to denote what days
of the business transaction they were at, making it all
sort of tricky. And additionally, she did not keep any
sort of consistent diary after the late seventeen twenties kind
(02:10):
of fell off of that habit. So even what we
have is kind of a small section of her life.
But she was incredibly successful in her lifetime, but because
of the nature of her work and the art that
she did in her style of art, kind of falling
out of favor after her lifetime, all of which we
were going to talk about. Her story has largely been
forgotten outside of art history circles, so we're going to
(02:32):
give her a little love today. Rosalba Giovanna Carrietra was
born in Venice, Italy, on October seventh, sixteen seventy five.
Some sources list her birthdate as at the end of
sixteen seventy three. Her father, Andrea Carriatta, was a legal
clerk in the government, and her mother, Albat Floreste Carrierra,
was a lacemaker. Rosalba had two sisters. Her sister, Giovannah,
(02:57):
might have been born in sixteen seventy five, and that
could have contro beat it to this confusion on the
birth dates. Her youngest sister was and Zola Cecilia, who
was born in sixteen seventy seven. And Zola would later
marry the famed Venetian painter Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini. Yeah, and Zola.
You will sometimes see her name appear anglicized to Angela,
(03:18):
so if you're ever looking anything up about them, that's
what's going on there. Uh and Roslabo most likely learned
lace making from her mother, but most of the information
that we have about this is pretty speculative. It is
certainly possible that she learned this trade. It's also possible
that her initial artistic efforts were making lace designs for
her mother, but we don't really know. We do know
(03:38):
that at some point she turned to visual art. She
might have been tutored by one or more of Venice's
prominent artists at the time. These included Antonio Lazari, the
engraver Dia Montini, and painter Antonio Bellestra. All of them
have come up as possible mentors, but it's not totally
clear whether she received formal instruction for many of them.
(03:59):
She's started to render portraits in miniature on snuff boxes,
which were popular with tourists in Venice. One of the
things that made her work in snuffbox portraits unique was
her use of ivory as a background rather than bellum
and using tempera as the painting medium. That use of
ivory eventually became commonplace and miniature portraiture, but she was
(04:21):
the first known to do this, and her first known
pastel portrait, which is something she came to be known for,
was begun most likely in sixte so she was already
in her twenties at that point, and it was a
rendering of the artist and art dealer Antonio Mariezanetti. In
nineteen fifteen. That is a significant jump, but come with us.
(04:42):
Austin Dobson wrote of Rosalba's choice to work in pastel's,
a medium that was not particularly popular, and he wrote,
quote in oil painting, the field was crowded with formidable competitors,
but the less popular pastel, with its brilliant contrasts and
silvery transparencies, it's of intins and velvety softness, offered special
(05:03):
facilities for the display of Rosalba's gifts as well as
the disguise of her deficiencies. So up to this point
pastel's were mostly used just for quick drawing studies or
preparatory sketches to lay out a work that was going
to later be rendered in oil. Her artwork was quickly
recognized as special. She was still young and pretty new
in the field, and within a very short time Rosalba
(05:25):
had become a member of Rome's prestigious Academia to St. Luca,
and that was an association that sought to govern, educate
and elevate the arts. Yeah, that was by some accounts
within a year of her released starting her art career,
so that's quite notable. And Kanyetta gained a significant enough
following that when nobles and royalties visited Venice, they were
(05:46):
sure to commission portraits, either in miniature or in larger
size throughout her early career. Her reputation rapidly spread throughout
Europe due to these tourist commissions. When the wealthy visitors
then brought their Kieta portraits back come, they showed them
off to their friends and thus expanded her audience, who
all hoped that they would eventually get their own Rosalba
(06:07):
portraits made. Among her commissions in her early career were
portraits of Maximilian the second of Bavaria and Frederick the
fourth of Denmark. In seventeen o eight, when Fernando Carlo Gonzaga,
Duke of Mantua and Montferrat died. Rosalba Carrierra assisted in
managing his art collection as it was distributed to new owners.
(06:28):
She cataloged the pieces that were involved and sent the
lists to buyers. She also copied one of the works
of painter Guido kang Yashi, which was in the Duke's collection.
That is a study. Yeah, there's a lot of talk
of copies throughout her career, like she would make copies
of other people's work, people would copy her work. It
did not seem to have the same concern in terms
(06:48):
of legality or stealing of intellectual property that it does
at this point. On April first, seventeen nineteen, Rosalba's father died,
and this was of course a very difficult loss. The
Kadietta family was incredibly close, but it also, on the
upside opened up some avenues of opportunity because up to
that point Rosalba had stayed her entire life in Venice.
(07:10):
But once he passed, she felt free to travel for
the first time, which people wanted her to do, and
she was in her forties at that point. So in
seventeen twenty, Carrieta, who was encouraged by collector Pierre Krozatte
traveled to Paris. Kazatt had assured her that Paris would
just love her, and he was right. We really should
pause for a moment to acknowledge how influential and important
(07:34):
Crozatte was in the European art world at the time.
Over his lifetime, he amassed one of the most impressive
private art collections in history. In this collection, which was
augmented and further developed by his nephew after his death,
was acquired in its entirety by the State Hermitage Museum
in St. Petersburg, Russia, in seventeen seventy two, is part
(07:56):
of Catherine the greats private collection. This was one of
the biggest art acquisitions of its time. The entire collection
remains at the Hermitage to this day. So all of
that is to contextualize the fact that when Krozatte told
Rosalba Carrera that she should come to Paris as his
guest and it would be good for her career, that
(08:16):
advice was carrying considerable weights. And in just a moment
we will talk about this big Paris trip, which most
art historians note as an incredibly important event in Cardiata's life.
But first we're going to take a quick sponsor break.
(08:37):
When she traveled to Paris, Rosalba brought her entire remaining
family along for the ride. Her sister en Zola and
husband Giovanni Pellegrini accompanied her, Pellegrini having his own business
to conduct in Paris on a commission to paint a
bank ceiling. Her sister Giovanna had begun to assist her
in her work, and so she traveled with her and
(08:58):
her mother was also part of their traveling party. While
in France, or As, Albat painted several dozen commissions, including
one of Louis the fifteenth, who was still a child
of ten at the time. While Louis the fourteenth had
died five years earlier, Louis the fift wasn't actively ruling
yet due to his young age. This portrait features Louis
the fifteenth that a red coat with a blue sash
(09:19):
and a white lace shebaut surrounded by a mane of
curly hair. He has large brown eyes that become the
focal point of the portrait. There rendered in slightly sharper
detail than his other features. Yeah, there's an eyelash situation
going on in that painting that I love. Kenyata's trip
to Paris also resulted in her being invited to join
(09:40):
the French Royal Academy on the merit of that portrait
of Louis. Once the members of the Academy saw her
rendering of what they were calling the Dauphin. Again there's
that weird thing with him not quite being king yet
her acceptance was, according to her own diary, instant and unanimous,
and this was truly a moment of note, as women
were rarely admitted to the Academy, and I think on
(10:02):
previous occasions there had been a lot of voting involved.
Carrera sent pastel to the Royal Academy in Paris as
part of her admittance as a member. It was called
Nymph de la Suite Dapolon. It's in the collection of
the Louver today. While she had been accepted based on
her portrait of Louis the fifteenth, she wanted to send
a different work, which she shipped later on from Venice,
(10:24):
and she wrote of this portrait quote, I have tried
to depict a young girl, knowing that to youth many
faults are forgiven. She also stands for a nymph of
Apollo's choir, who goes on her own part to offer
to the Academy of Paris a wreath of laurels, judging
that body alone worthy to wear it and to preside
(10:44):
over all the others. There were a number of reasons
that the timing was perfect for Rosalba to visit Paris.
One was that there was this new trend among the
aristocracy to buy their own Paris apartments rather than living
at Versailles. There was also a rising merchant class had
also found themselves suddenly having property, and they all needed
art to decorate those spaces. But of course the wall
(11:06):
space available in apartments was smaller than what they had
been used to uh Tracy and I Bendeversai. Those walls
are large and ready for big art, so in these
smaller spaces they needed appropriately sized artwork. So a portraitis
that was brought to the city and lauded by one
of the continent's most well known and well respected art
collectors was in high demand, indeed, thus her many many commissions.
(11:30):
The other factors had to do with the shift and
appreciation for pastelists and their work. Before this era, oil
painting had been far more popular Because production of plate
glass had had advanced significantly, delicate pastel works could be
preserved without fear that the powdery pigment would flake or
would fall away. For the backing that made larger portrait
(11:53):
pieces possible instead of just the miniatures that had started
carrier As career. And One other signific contributor was the
advancement in the production of pastel crayons. As pastel work
became more and more highly regarded, in part because of
Carerietta's skill and popularity, and industry of art suppliers rose
up to meet it. Crayon maker started producing more and
(12:15):
more colors, and artists could easily carry them to clients
homes to work. There was no drying time, and it
did not take up nearly as much space to invite
a pastel artist into your home to make your portrait
as it would have an oil painter who might require
a lot more sittings and also need to leave that
work in situ between those sittings, occupying a chunk of
(12:36):
your house. Despite her great success in France, though she
wanted to return to Venice after a year of being
the toast of Paris. This also coincided with a significant
financial crash in France that had been brewing for some
time under the regent, the Duke of Orleans. Rosalba Carrera
had ties to the Scottish economist John Law, who served
(12:58):
as controller of France's fine ances at the Duke of
Orleans appointment. Law had been responsible for the creation of
the financial disaster known as the Mississippi Bubble, which was
the catalyst for this whole crash. He ended up fleeing
Paris in the dead of night. Kitty at A sort
of captured Law's last few days in Paris in her journal,
(13:18):
describing days that involved meeting with him as the bank
notes that he had been issuing were completely devalued and
riots began in the city. There's one entry where she
just starts bad day. She had been working on a
commission for him, so she was pretty immediately adjacent to
the family as they were planning to leave, although she
really doesn't delve into the specifics of the economy in
(13:39):
her accounts of each day. But once he left, she
just kind of busied herself with all of the other
work that she had been hired to do. He as
much as they had been very entwined in each other's
lives up to that point. Once he's gone, she kind
of just wipes the slate clean on him and doesn't
really refer to him again. She had among her other
commissions a portrait of the artist Antoine Watteau, but also
(14:00):
work for a number of other nobles that she wasn't
really all that interested in. So in seventeen twenty one,
having made a nice bit of money and worked tirelessly
for more than a year, Rosalba returned home to Italy.
As a little historical trivia side note, Antoine Watteau is
where the name Watteau pleats come from, which, if you
look at pictures of dresses from this century and Marie
(14:23):
Antoinette dresses as well, those long pleates that start at
the back of the neck and and carry down in
a cascade, those are named after him because he painted
them so beautifully. In seventeen Rosalba went to Madenna, Italy,
and created several portraits of the Princess and Riquetta des Day,
as well as the rest of the duke's daughters. The
intent was that these portraits would be sent around a
(14:45):
potential marriage matches, which is a pretty common practice, and
Riquetto was one of the young women who was on
the short list of potential wives for Louis the fifteenth
of France, but Holly wasn't able to discern whether he
got one of these portrait it's and part of his
search for a suitable queen. And by the time Rosalba
returned home to Venice from Modena, she had a raft
(15:08):
of commissions waiting for her, ordered from all over Europe,
particularly in England. People had really fallen in love with
her work when she had become one of the wealthiest
and most successful artists of her time, working in a
medium that no one had been especially interested in before
she began creating portraits. One of the things that's interesting
is it in some cases people would send her portraits
that other artists had made of them and said like,
(15:29):
can you do a better version of this? Uh? And
she also had a constant list of people who wanted
to be taught by her. In seventeen thirty, she traveled
to Vienna and became a favorite of Charles the sixth
Holy Roman Emperor. Elizabeth Christine, who was the Empress, asked
her to teach her after the artist had completed her
(15:49):
portrait after Vienna, Carriaa returned once again to Venice, and
for the next several years her life was really a
steady stream of work. And then in seventeen thirty seven
everything changed when Rosalba's sister, Giovanna died on May nine. Giovanna,
as we mentioned, had assisted Rosalba in her studio and
the two of them were very close. They are often
(16:10):
referred to as best friends and confidants. They were so
close that in one of Kadrietta's self portraits that she
produced in seventeen fifteen, she had chosen to include a
portrait of her sister. She is holding that portrait in
her hands so that they're kind of together in this
self portrait. And then to add another tragedy. In seventeen
thirty eight, their mother, Alba, also died, and this combination
(16:31):
of grief as well as the loss of her trusted assistant,
really slowed Krietta's productivity significantly. By the seventeen forties, another
problem arose that further stunted her work. She started to
have some trouble in her vision. By seventeen forty five
or seventeen forty six. At the end of the decade,
she had surgery to try to correct her cataracts. This
(16:53):
was probably what's called couching, and that involves surgically depressing
the opaque lens to the bottom of the eye to
let the light in. Around the time that carrier I
had her surgery, a French physician named Jacques Davielle was
experimenting with cataract extraction, but it's not likely that she
had this new procedure. Some accounts suggest that the surgery
(17:14):
was what caused her total blindness, but it's more likely
that the couching didn't affect any permanent fix. After the surgery,
she had written to a friend that she seemed quite hopeful. Regardless,
any improvement that she might have had in her vision
was pretty short lived, and within a few years her
renowned and successful career had ended because she was completely blind. Yeah,
(17:37):
couching is one of those procedures that actually still happens
today in less advanced countries. It's not the best way
to deal with cataracts, but it is sort of fascinating
if you're into eye science. And during this late period
of her work in the seventeen forties, while her site
was failing, Rosalba produced what is believed to have been
her last self portrait, and this portrait is UH fifty
(17:57):
six point seven by FORTI was about twenty two by
eighteen inches to give you a sense of the size
of the portrait she was doing. It's rendered on buff
paper and in it she has aged and the tone
of the pieces quite casual. She actually made this for
a friend. But what's interesting is that even though her
eyesight was going, her technique remains as striking as ever.
She rendered the lace and jewelry really beautifully through the
(18:20):
careful use of texture to mimic detail. Her work is
one of those things that when you get right up
to it, it just looks like a bunch of strokes,
and then you just take one step back and everything
kind of snaps into a really beautiful focus with some
softness to a lot of the pieces. And she was
still just as good, even really struggling with her eyesight
as she had been earlier in her life. And the
(18:42):
years that followed, Rose Alba lived in her home in
Venice with her surviving sister, who had been widowed. She
dictated her correspondence to her friends and had news and
literature read to her, but she was unwilling to go
out very often. In December of seventeen fifty six, she
made out her will, leaving everything she had to her
sister and a few other relatives. And Rosalba died on
(19:04):
April fifteen, seventeen fifty seven, in Venice, at the age
of eighty one. She was buried next to her sister Giovanna,
in the church of San Vito and San Modesto. She
had popularized pastel portraiture to a point where she was
one of the most copied artists of all time, and
in a way, the timing of her passing was fortuitous.
She did not live quite long enough to see the
(19:27):
rococo frills that were so much of a part of
her work fall out of favor. But the timing of
her death, which took places the early seeds of neo
Classicism were being sown, they contributed to her name falling
out of the public eye and to relative obscurity, especially
compared to some of her male counterparts. Still, she has
(19:47):
continued to delight art historians even in recent years, and
we're going to talk about that after we take another
quick sponsor break. One of the things that gives Rosalbaccaria's
work It's Ethereal Beauty, also added a dimension of danger
(20:08):
to shipping her pieces around to their various destinations. Pastels are,
of course, just sticks of pigment and a filler that
makes them opaque that retained their crayon shape through some
sort of binding medium. Pastel works don't require drying time,
but they can be easily smudged or distorted, and often
in letters or diary notes, Cardieta mentioned concerns about her
(20:30):
portraits making it to their recipients. Intact, Rosalba was so
concerned about the safety of her works that she even
included little good luck charms when she shipped them in.
One of these was discovered by the Royal Collection Trust,
and that's the organization that's tasked with the management and
care of the British Royal Art collection and residences. In
(20:52):
seventeen sixty two, George the Third purchased the entire collection
of Joseph Smith, who was a British art agent and
collector who lived in Venice. During Carrierra's career, she produced
several works for Smith over the years, including Uppersonification of Winter,
which Carrierrat produced in the seventeen twenties, and this piece
(21:13):
of work features a young woman with dark hair wrapped
in a fur lined cloak, and the cloak is falling
off of one shoulder, so her shoulder and her neck
are exposed, and her faces at an angle, and it's
quite striking, and it is rendered on blue paper, although
you really can't see very much actual blue through the pastel,
and the young woman looks just luminous. The softness of
the pastel's make her skin look utterly velvety and also
(21:35):
sort of glowy, while details like the ribbons in her
her hair and her earring look sharper in contrast with
glints of light on them. And Joseph Smith described this
work in his list of his collection as quote the
most excellent this Virtuosa ever painted. A conservator working with
this artwork discovered a tiny card tucked in between the
(21:57):
arts wooden frame and the canvas liner. This is a
small card four point three by three point three centimeters
and it features the three Magi, which was a topic
that Carriero was very fond of. And this card wasn't
exactly a surprise. There is plenty of documentation that Resolva
placed images of the magi into parcels with her works.
(22:17):
When she shipped them, she would tell associates that all
of her works that traveled with their little saints that
Sentini in Italian always got to their destinations safe and sound.
As the conservator worked with this piece extra carefully because
of the fragile nature of pastels, they noticed the small
piece of paper and it was immediately recognized as one
(22:38):
of carrier's good luck Sanserini cards. And because pastel's continue
to be a topic of conservation discussions in the modern era,
and because often the bases used for older pastel aren't
are fragile themselves, so like the paperbackings, there are not
a huge number of special exhibits featuring pastels that were
made during Resolva's time, including hers. The lack of varnish
(23:01):
like you wouldn't varnish a pastel, means that fading is
a real concern for some of them, and exposure to
light has to be carefully managed, so that also contributes
to the difficulty of shipping pieces for special exhibitions. But
the good news is that because she was so popular
and prolific during her time, and her work was collected
so avidly throughout Europe. You can find ros Alba carrier
(23:23):
As works and many museums throughout the world, as well
as checking out her work online. We already mentioned the
Heritage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia and the Louver in Paris,
and her work is also in the collections at the
National Gallery of Ireland, the met in New York, the
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Harvard Art Museums.
The trick is making sure the work is on display
(23:45):
before you go, because pastels require really careful preservations, so
they're not always on display for the public. Uh. Yeah,
they're particularly beautiful, but it's one of those things where
even like the vibration of moving it from spot to
spot can affect how it looks, which makes them all
the more special in my opinion. So I have a
little bit of listener mail. Uh this is from our
(24:07):
listener Melissa, and she writes, Hi, Tracy and Holly, I
absolutely love your podcast. I'm a scientist by training, but
absolutely love learning about everything. I'd probably still be in
university taking courses if I didn't have bills to pay,
which may explain why I chose to teach at a University.
Thank you so much, by the way, for being an
educator from us. Recently, my dad was cleaning out my
great aunt's home after she passed away. She was a
(24:29):
career woman who worked for the New Yorker. She was
quite the collector and amateur historian. One of the fines
that had me exclaiming, much to my dad's confusion, Hollywood Love.
This was a trio of Prince by Charles Adams of
the Adams Family. I quickly had to explain my love
for the podcast and reminded him that one of my
Christmas gift requests last year was to attend the live
show in Seattle on safety coffins. He may or may
(24:50):
not have thought I was a bit too enthusiastic. Anyway,
I have attached a quick picture I managed to grab
the Prince before they were included in a pile of
items being set to be assessed, restored and raimed. She
also gives us a fun suggestion, and then she sends
best to you both and will continue to eagerly listen
to every podcast on your show. She also attached a
photo of her katzuzu, which is pretty great because here's
(25:14):
another secret, HOLLI trivia thing. We used to have a
cat named ze Su. I almost named her Zuzu. And anyway,
thank you so much, Melissa. Uh, I love that. It's
it's to my heart sort of Charles Adams season now
that we're into fall, and even though his work was
going on throughout the year, because the Adams family is
a little bit um, you know, creepy and cookie. I
(25:35):
think of them as especially fondly at Halloween time. Uh,
and I think we're already for some Charles Adams fun.
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(25:56):
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(26:16):
For more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson. Tracy,
everybody knows that I waxed rapsodic all the time about
(00:22):
she is one of my very favorite artists. This is
not about her, but she's kind of loosely tied to it.
We haven't featured an artist biography in a minute, and
I love them. So today we're going to talk about
someone who was actually one of le Bron's influences, and
that is Rosalba Carriera, who had been on my list
for a bit, and then she also came up in
a discussion that Tracy and I were having recently. We
(00:44):
are also coming up on her birthday, so it kind
of seemed like a good time to talk about her
surprising level of success in the male dominated European art
world of the early seventeen hundreds. It's a little surprising
because most people don't really know about her unless they
study art history. She's not one of like the great
painters that you get the list of in a standard
art class um, and much of what we know about
(01:05):
the particulars of Cadeta's life come from her diary, which
was initially published in seventee. That was almost forty years
after she died, and since she was pretty clearly not
intending for that diary to be a published biography, her
life story has largely been pieced together through the notes
that she was taking in that diary on her daily life,
and some of those are fairly inconsistent in terms of
(01:27):
like how she listed her commissions and their status is
and their payments. So really it was like if you
have a checklist or some sort of journal where you
keep track of what's going on in your day. Imagine
if that got published as your life story, probably people
would think you or maybe disorganized or just inconsistent, but
I think most people are. For example, she had a
(01:48):
system of marking things, but it seemed to change and evolve,
and there are some notations that no one's really decided
yet exactly what they meant, whether they included like sitting time,
or it was like a system to denote what days
of the business transaction they were at, making it all
sort of tricky. And additionally, she did not keep any
sort of consistent diary after the late seventeen twenties kind
(02:10):
of fell off of that habit. So even what we
have is kind of a small section of her life.
But she was incredibly successful in her lifetime, but because
of the nature of her work and the art that
she did in her style of art, kind of falling
out of favor after her lifetime, all of which we
were going to talk about. Her story has largely been
forgotten outside of art history circles, so we're going to
(02:32):
give her a little love today. Rosalba Giovanna Carrietra was
born in Venice, Italy, on October seventh, sixteen seventy five.
Some sources list her birthdate as at the end of
sixteen seventy three. Her father, Andrea Carriatta, was a legal
clerk in the government, and her mother, Albat Floreste Carrierra,
was a lacemaker. Rosalba had two sisters. Her sister, Giovannah,
(02:57):
might have been born in sixteen seventy five, and that
could have contro beat it to this confusion on the
birth dates. Her youngest sister was and Zola Cecilia, who
was born in sixteen seventy seven. And Zola would later
marry the famed Venetian painter Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini. Yeah, and Zola.
You will sometimes see her name appear anglicized to Angela,
(03:18):
so if you're ever looking anything up about them, that's
what's going on there. Uh and Roslabo most likely learned
lace making from her mother, but most of the information
that we have about this is pretty speculative. It is
certainly possible that she learned this trade. It's also possible
that her initial artistic efforts were making lace designs for
her mother, but we don't really know. We do know
(03:38):
that at some point she turned to visual art. She
might have been tutored by one or more of Venice's
prominent artists at the time. These included Antonio Lazari, the
engraver Dia Montini, and painter Antonio Bellestra. All of them
have come up as possible mentors, but it's not totally
clear whether she received formal instruction for many of them.
(03:59):
She's started to render portraits in miniature on snuff boxes,
which were popular with tourists in Venice. One of the
things that made her work in snuffbox portraits unique was
her use of ivory as a background rather than bellum
and using tempera as the painting medium. That use of
ivory eventually became commonplace and miniature portraiture, but she was
(04:21):
the first known to do this, and her first known
pastel portrait, which is something she came to be known for,
was begun most likely in sixte so she was already
in her twenties at that point, and it was a
rendering of the artist and art dealer Antonio Mariezanetti. In
nineteen fifteen. That is a significant jump, but come with us.
(04:42):
Austin Dobson wrote of Rosalba's choice to work in pastel's,
a medium that was not particularly popular, and he wrote,
quote in oil painting, the field was crowded with formidable competitors,
but the less popular pastel, with its brilliant contrasts and
silvery transparencies, it's of intins and velvety softness, offered special
(05:03):
facilities for the display of Rosalba's gifts as well as
the disguise of her deficiencies. So up to this point
pastel's were mostly used just for quick drawing studies or
preparatory sketches to lay out a work that was going
to later be rendered in oil. Her artwork was quickly
recognized as special. She was still young and pretty new
in the field, and within a very short time Rosalba
(05:25):
had become a member of Rome's prestigious Academia to St. Luca,
and that was an association that sought to govern, educate
and elevate the arts. Yeah, that was by some accounts
within a year of her released starting her art career,
so that's quite notable. And Kanyetta gained a significant enough
following that when nobles and royalties visited Venice, they were
(05:46):
sure to commission portraits, either in miniature or in larger
size throughout her early career. Her reputation rapidly spread throughout
Europe due to these tourist commissions. When the wealthy visitors
then brought their Kieta portraits back come, they showed them
off to their friends and thus expanded her audience, who
all hoped that they would eventually get their own Rosalba
(06:07):
portraits made. Among her commissions in her early career were
portraits of Maximilian the second of Bavaria and Frederick the
fourth of Denmark. In seventeen o eight, when Fernando Carlo Gonzaga,
Duke of Mantua and Montferrat died. Rosalba Carrierra assisted in
managing his art collection as it was distributed to new owners.
(06:28):
She cataloged the pieces that were involved and sent the
lists to buyers. She also copied one of the works
of painter Guido kang Yashi, which was in the Duke's collection.
That is a study. Yeah, there's a lot of talk
of copies throughout her career, like she would make copies
of other people's work, people would copy her work. It
did not seem to have the same concern in terms
(06:48):
of legality or stealing of intellectual property that it does
at this point. On April first, seventeen nineteen, Rosalba's father died,
and this was of course a very difficult loss. The
Kadietta family was incredibly close, but it also, on the
upside opened up some avenues of opportunity because up to
that point Rosalba had stayed her entire life in Venice.
(07:10):
But once he passed, she felt free to travel for
the first time, which people wanted her to do, and
she was in her forties at that point. So in
seventeen twenty, Carrieta, who was encouraged by collector Pierre Krozatte
traveled to Paris. Kazatt had assured her that Paris would
just love her, and he was right. We really should
pause for a moment to acknowledge how influential and important
(07:34):
Crozatte was in the European art world at the time.
Over his lifetime, he amassed one of the most impressive
private art collections in history. In this collection, which was
augmented and further developed by his nephew after his death,
was acquired in its entirety by the State Hermitage Museum
in St. Petersburg, Russia, in seventeen seventy two, is part
(07:56):
of Catherine the greats private collection. This was one of
the biggest art acquisitions of its time. The entire collection
remains at the Hermitage to this day. So all of
that is to contextualize the fact that when Krozatte told
Rosalba Carrera that she should come to Paris as his
guest and it would be good for her career, that
(08:16):
advice was carrying considerable weights. And in just a moment
we will talk about this big Paris trip, which most
art historians note as an incredibly important event in Cardiata's life.
But first we're going to take a quick sponsor break.
(08:37):
When she traveled to Paris, Rosalba brought her entire remaining
family along for the ride. Her sister en Zola and
husband Giovanni Pellegrini accompanied her, Pellegrini having his own business
to conduct in Paris on a commission to paint a
bank ceiling. Her sister Giovanna had begun to assist her
in her work, and so she traveled with her and
(08:58):
her mother was also part of their traveling party. While
in France, or As, Albat painted several dozen commissions, including
one of Louis the fifteenth, who was still a child
of ten at the time. While Louis the fourteenth had
died five years earlier, Louis the fift wasn't actively ruling
yet due to his young age. This portrait features Louis
the fifteenth that a red coat with a blue sash
(09:19):
and a white lace shebaut surrounded by a mane of
curly hair. He has large brown eyes that become the
focal point of the portrait. There rendered in slightly sharper
detail than his other features. Yeah, there's an eyelash situation
going on in that painting that I love. Kenyata's trip
to Paris also resulted in her being invited to join
(09:40):
the French Royal Academy on the merit of that portrait
of Louis. Once the members of the Academy saw her
rendering of what they were calling the Dauphin. Again there's
that weird thing with him not quite being king yet
her acceptance was, according to her own diary, instant and unanimous,
and this was truly a moment of note, as women
were rarely admitted to the Academy, and I think on
(10:02):
previous occasions there had been a lot of voting involved.
Carrera sent pastel to the Royal Academy in Paris as
part of her admittance as a member. It was called
Nymph de la Suite Dapolon. It's in the collection of
the Louver today. While she had been accepted based on
her portrait of Louis the fifteenth, she wanted to send
a different work, which she shipped later on from Venice,
(10:24):
and she wrote of this portrait quote, I have tried
to depict a young girl, knowing that to youth many
faults are forgiven. She also stands for a nymph of
Apollo's choir, who goes on her own part to offer
to the Academy of Paris a wreath of laurels, judging
that body alone worthy to wear it and to preside
(10:44):
over all the others. There were a number of reasons
that the timing was perfect for Rosalba to visit Paris.
One was that there was this new trend among the
aristocracy to buy their own Paris apartments rather than living
at Versailles. There was also a rising merchant class had
also found themselves suddenly having property, and they all needed
art to decorate those spaces. But of course the wall
(11:06):
space available in apartments was smaller than what they had
been used to uh Tracy and I Bendeversai. Those walls
are large and ready for big art, so in these
smaller spaces they needed appropriately sized artwork. So a portraitis
that was brought to the city and lauded by one
of the continent's most well known and well respected art
collectors was in high demand, indeed, thus her many many commissions.
(11:30):
The other factors had to do with the shift and
appreciation for pastelists and their work. Before this era, oil
painting had been far more popular Because production of plate
glass had had advanced significantly, delicate pastel works could be
preserved without fear that the powdery pigment would flake or
would fall away. For the backing that made larger portrait
(11:53):
pieces possible instead of just the miniatures that had started
carrier As career. And One other signific contributor was the
advancement in the production of pastel crayons. As pastel work
became more and more highly regarded, in part because of
Carerietta's skill and popularity, and industry of art suppliers rose
up to meet it. Crayon maker started producing more and
(12:15):
more colors, and artists could easily carry them to clients
homes to work. There was no drying time, and it
did not take up nearly as much space to invite
a pastel artist into your home to make your portrait
as it would have an oil painter who might require
a lot more sittings and also need to leave that
work in situ between those sittings, occupying a chunk of
(12:36):
your house. Despite her great success in France, though she
wanted to return to Venice after a year of being
the toast of Paris. This also coincided with a significant
financial crash in France that had been brewing for some
time under the regent, the Duke of Orleans. Rosalba Carrera
had ties to the Scottish economist John Law, who served
(12:58):
as controller of France's fine ances at the Duke of
Orleans appointment. Law had been responsible for the creation of
the financial disaster known as the Mississippi Bubble, which was
the catalyst for this whole crash. He ended up fleeing
Paris in the dead of night. Kitty at A sort
of captured Law's last few days in Paris in her journal,
(13:18):
describing days that involved meeting with him as the bank
notes that he had been issuing were completely devalued and
riots began in the city. There's one entry where she
just starts bad day. She had been working on a
commission for him, so she was pretty immediately adjacent to
the family as they were planning to leave, although she
really doesn't delve into the specifics of the economy in
(13:39):
her accounts of each day. But once he left, she
just kind of busied herself with all of the other
work that she had been hired to do. He as
much as they had been very entwined in each other's
lives up to that point. Once he's gone, she kind
of just wipes the slate clean on him and doesn't
really refer to him again. She had among her other
commissions a portrait of the artist Antoine Watteau, but also
(14:00):
work for a number of other nobles that she wasn't
really all that interested in. So in seventeen twenty one,
having made a nice bit of money and worked tirelessly
for more than a year, Rosalba returned home to Italy.
As a little historical trivia side note, Antoine Watteau is
where the name Watteau pleats come from, which, if you
look at pictures of dresses from this century and Marie
(14:23):
Antoinette dresses as well, those long pleates that start at
the back of the neck and and carry down in
a cascade, those are named after him because he painted
them so beautifully. In seventeen Rosalba went to Madenna, Italy,
and created several portraits of the Princess and Riquetta des Day,
as well as the rest of the duke's daughters. The
intent was that these portraits would be sent around a
(14:45):
potential marriage matches, which is a pretty common practice, and
Riquetto was one of the young women who was on
the short list of potential wives for Louis the fifteenth
of France, but Holly wasn't able to discern whether he
got one of these portrait it's and part of his
search for a suitable queen. And by the time Rosalba
returned home to Venice from Modena, she had a raft
(15:08):
of commissions waiting for her, ordered from all over Europe,
particularly in England. People had really fallen in love with
her work when she had become one of the wealthiest
and most successful artists of her time, working in a
medium that no one had been especially interested in before
she began creating portraits. One of the things that's interesting
is it in some cases people would send her portraits
that other artists had made of them and said like,
(15:29):
can you do a better version of this? Uh? And
she also had a constant list of people who wanted
to be taught by her. In seventeen thirty, she traveled
to Vienna and became a favorite of Charles the sixth
Holy Roman Emperor. Elizabeth Christine, who was the Empress, asked
her to teach her after the artist had completed her
(15:49):
portrait after Vienna, Carriaa returned once again to Venice, and
for the next several years her life was really a
steady stream of work. And then in seventeen thirty seven
everything changed when Rosalba's sister, Giovanna died on May nine. Giovanna,
as we mentioned, had assisted Rosalba in her studio and
the two of them were very close. They are often
(16:10):
referred to as best friends and confidants. They were so
close that in one of Kadrietta's self portraits that she
produced in seventeen fifteen, she had chosen to include a
portrait of her sister. She is holding that portrait in
her hands so that they're kind of together in this
self portrait. And then to add another tragedy. In seventeen
thirty eight, their mother, Alba, also died, and this combination
(16:31):
of grief as well as the loss of her trusted assistant,
really slowed Krietta's productivity significantly. By the seventeen forties, another
problem arose that further stunted her work. She started to
have some trouble in her vision. By seventeen forty five
or seventeen forty six. At the end of the decade,
she had surgery to try to correct her cataracts. This
(16:53):
was probably what's called couching, and that involves surgically depressing
the opaque lens to the bottom of the eye to
let the light in. Around the time that carrier I
had her surgery, a French physician named Jacques Davielle was
experimenting with cataract extraction, but it's not likely that she
had this new procedure. Some accounts suggest that the surgery
(17:14):
was what caused her total blindness, but it's more likely
that the couching didn't affect any permanent fix. After the surgery,
she had written to a friend that she seemed quite hopeful. Regardless,
any improvement that she might have had in her vision
was pretty short lived, and within a few years her
renowned and successful career had ended because she was completely blind. Yeah,
(17:37):
couching is one of those procedures that actually still happens
today in less advanced countries. It's not the best way
to deal with cataracts, but it is sort of fascinating
if you're into eye science. And during this late period
of her work in the seventeen forties, while her site
was failing, Rosalba produced what is believed to have been
her last self portrait, and this portrait is UH fifty
(17:57):
six point seven by FORTI was about twenty two by
eighteen inches to give you a sense of the size
of the portrait she was doing. It's rendered on buff
paper and in it she has aged and the tone
of the pieces quite casual. She actually made this for
a friend. But what's interesting is that even though her
eyesight was going, her technique remains as striking as ever.
She rendered the lace and jewelry really beautifully through the
(18:20):
careful use of texture to mimic detail. Her work is
one of those things that when you get right up
to it, it just looks like a bunch of strokes,
and then you just take one step back and everything
kind of snaps into a really beautiful focus with some
softness to a lot of the pieces. And she was
still just as good, even really struggling with her eyesight
as she had been earlier in her life. And the
(18:42):
years that followed, Rose Alba lived in her home in
Venice with her surviving sister, who had been widowed. She
dictated her correspondence to her friends and had news and
literature read to her, but she was unwilling to go
out very often. In December of seventeen fifty six, she
made out her will, leaving everything she had to her
sister and a few other relatives. And Rosalba died on
(19:04):
April fifteen, seventeen fifty seven, in Venice, at the age
of eighty one. She was buried next to her sister Giovanna,
in the church of San Vito and San Modesto. She
had popularized pastel portraiture to a point where she was
one of the most copied artists of all time, and
in a way, the timing of her passing was fortuitous.
She did not live quite long enough to see the
(19:27):
rococo frills that were so much of a part of
her work fall out of favor. But the timing of
her death, which took places the early seeds of neo
Classicism were being sown, they contributed to her name falling
out of the public eye and to relative obscurity, especially
compared to some of her male counterparts. Still, she has
(19:47):
continued to delight art historians even in recent years, and
we're going to talk about that after we take another
quick sponsor break. One of the things that gives Rosalbaccaria's
work It's Ethereal Beauty, also added a dimension of danger
(20:08):
to shipping her pieces around to their various destinations. Pastels are,
of course, just sticks of pigment and a filler that
makes them opaque that retained their crayon shape through some
sort of binding medium. Pastel works don't require drying time,
but they can be easily smudged or distorted, and often
in letters or diary notes, Cardieta mentioned concerns about her
(20:30):
portraits making it to their recipients. Intact, Rosalba was so
concerned about the safety of her works that she even
included little good luck charms when she shipped them in.
One of these was discovered by the Royal Collection Trust,
and that's the organization that's tasked with the management and
care of the British Royal Art collection and residences. In
(20:52):
seventeen sixty two, George the Third purchased the entire collection
of Joseph Smith, who was a British art agent and
collector who lived in Venice. During Carrierra's career, she produced
several works for Smith over the years, including Uppersonification of Winter,
which Carrierrat produced in the seventeen twenties, and this piece
(21:13):
of work features a young woman with dark hair wrapped
in a fur lined cloak, and the cloak is falling
off of one shoulder, so her shoulder and her neck
are exposed, and her faces at an angle, and it's
quite striking, and it is rendered on blue paper, although
you really can't see very much actual blue through the pastel,
and the young woman looks just luminous. The softness of
the pastel's make her skin look utterly velvety and also
(21:35):
sort of glowy, while details like the ribbons in her
her hair and her earring look sharper in contrast with
glints of light on them. And Joseph Smith described this
work in his list of his collection as quote the
most excellent this Virtuosa ever painted. A conservator working with
this artwork discovered a tiny card tucked in between the
(21:57):
arts wooden frame and the canvas liner. This is a
small card four point three by three point three centimeters
and it features the three Magi, which was a topic
that Carriero was very fond of. And this card wasn't
exactly a surprise. There is plenty of documentation that Resolva
placed images of the magi into parcels with her works.
(22:17):
When she shipped them, she would tell associates that all
of her works that traveled with their little saints that
Sentini in Italian always got to their destinations safe and sound.
As the conservator worked with this piece extra carefully because
of the fragile nature of pastels, they noticed the small
piece of paper and it was immediately recognized as one
(22:38):
of carrier's good luck Sanserini cards. And because pastel's continue
to be a topic of conservation discussions in the modern era,
and because often the bases used for older pastel aren't
are fragile themselves, so like the paperbackings, there are not
a huge number of special exhibits featuring pastels that were
made during Resolva's time, including hers. The lack of varnish
(23:01):
like you wouldn't varnish a pastel, means that fading is
a real concern for some of them, and exposure to
light has to be carefully managed, so that also contributes
to the difficulty of shipping pieces for special exhibitions. But
the good news is that because she was so popular
and prolific during her time, and her work was collected
so avidly throughout Europe. You can find ros Alba carrier
(23:23):
As works and many museums throughout the world, as well
as checking out her work online. We already mentioned the
Heritage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia and the Louver in Paris,
and her work is also in the collections at the
National Gallery of Ireland, the met in New York, the
Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Harvard Art Museums.
The trick is making sure the work is on display
(23:45):
before you go, because pastels require really careful preservations, so
they're not always on display for the public. Uh. Yeah,
they're particularly beautiful, but it's one of those things where
even like the vibration of moving it from spot to
spot can affect how it looks, which makes them all
the more special in my opinion. So I have a
little bit of listener mail. Uh this is from our
(24:07):
listener Melissa, and she writes, Hi, Tracy and Holly, I
absolutely love your podcast. I'm a scientist by training, but
absolutely love learning about everything. I'd probably still be in
university taking courses if I didn't have bills to pay,
which may explain why I chose to teach at a University.
Thank you so much, by the way, for being an
educator from us. Recently, my dad was cleaning out my
great aunt's home after she passed away. She was a
(24:29):
career woman who worked for the New Yorker. She was
quite the collector and amateur historian. One of the fines
that had me exclaiming, much to my dad's confusion, Hollywood Love.
This was a trio of Prince by Charles Adams of
the Adams Family. I quickly had to explain my love
for the podcast and reminded him that one of my
Christmas gift requests last year was to attend the live
show in Seattle on safety coffins. He may or may
(24:50):
not have thought I was a bit too enthusiastic. Anyway,
I have attached a quick picture I managed to grab
the Prince before they were included in a pile of
items being set to be assessed, restored and raimed. She
also gives us a fun suggestion, and then she sends
best to you both and will continue to eagerly listen
to every podcast on your show. She also attached a
photo of her katzuzu, which is pretty great because here's
(25:14):
another secret, HOLLI trivia thing. We used to have a
cat named ze Su. I almost named her Zuzu. And anyway,
thank you so much, Melissa. Uh, I love that. It's
it's to my heart sort of Charles Adams season now
that we're into fall, and even though his work was
going on throughout the year, because the Adams family is
a little bit um, you know, creepy and cookie. I
(25:35):
think of them as especially fondly at Halloween time. Uh,
and I think we're already for some Charles Adams fun.
So if you would like to write to us, you
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visit our website that is Missed in History dot com,
where you will find every episode of the show ever,
(25:56):
including uh show notes for any of the ones that
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Tracy Wilson
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