24 Facts About Rosalba Carriera

Rosalba Carriera is remembered as one of the most successful women artists of any era.

Rosalba Carriera was born in Venice to Andrea Rosalba Carriera, a lawyer, and Alba Foresti, who practiced embroidery and lace making.

An early biographer, Pierre-Jean Mariette, suggested that when the lace industry began to falter, Rosalba Carriera had to find a new means of providing for herself and her family.

Rosalba Carriera began painting miniatures for the lids of snuff-boxes and as independent objects.

Rosalba Carriera was among the first painters to use ivory instead of vellum as a support for miniatures.

Between 1720 and 1721, Rosalba Carriera worked in Paris, where her work was in great demand.

Rosalba Carriera painted Watteau, all the royalty and nobility from the King and Regent downwards, and was elected a member of the Academie royale by acclamation.

Rosalba Carriera injected her free style, sense of colour and charm into the Rococo style, to which she was closely associated and which soon dominated the arts.

In 1730, Rosalba Carriera made a long journey to the royal court in Vienna, Austria.

The works Rosalba Carriera executed there were later to form the basis of the large collection in the Alte Meister Gallery in Dresden.

Rosalba Carriera underwent two unsuccessful cataract surgeries but ended up losing her eyesight completely.

Rosalba Carriera outlived all her family, spending her last years in a small house in the Dorsoduro district of Venice, where she died at the age of 84.

Rosalba Carriera shared her talents with her sisters Giovana and Angela and later in life had female students such as Marianna Carlevarijs, Margherita Terzi, and Felicita Sartori.

Rosalba Carriera revolutionized the world of technology by binding colored chalk into sticks, which led to the development of a much wider range of prepared colors.

Rosalba Carriera was the first female painter to initiate a new style in the art community.

Rosalba Carriera was known for dragging the sides of white chalk across an under-drawing of darker tones to capture the shimmering texture of lace and satin.

Rosalba Carriera was able to highlight facial features and the soft cascades of powdered hair.

Rosalba Carriera had many patrons who were interested in her work.

Rosalba Carriera's earliest known pastel portrait depicts the collector Anton Maria Zanetti who procured many works by the artist and promoted her to other collectors when he travelled throughout Europe.

Rosalba Carriera holds a portrait of her sister and assistant Giovanna, whom she was very close to.

Rosalba Carriera was not just a portrait painter, even though that was her subject matter of choice due to her profession.

Rosalba Carriera was best known for her innovative approach to pastels, which had previously been used for informal drawings and preparatory sketches.

Rosalba Carriera was credited with pastel as a medium for serious portraiture that redefined the Rococo manner.

Rosalba Carriera is a character in the novel The Laws of Time by Andrea Perego.