Carriera, Rosalba

, an eminent female artist, was born at Chiozza, in 1675, and having shown an early taste for painting, her father placed her with an artist from whom she learned to paint in oil, but she afterwards practised, and carried crayon-painting to a high degree of perfection. Orlandi celebrates her miniatures. Her crayon painting arrives not seldom at the strength of pictures in oil. Her portraits, spread over all Europe, are as elegant and graceful in conception and attitude, as fresh, neat, and alluring in colour. Her Madonnas, and other sacred subjects, rise from grace to dignity, and even majesty. Equal and incessant application deprived her of sight during the last ten years of her life. She died at the advanced age of eighty-two, in 1757. ³