About This Artwork

Rosalba Carriera
Italian, 1675-1757

A Young Lady with a Parrot, c. 1730

Pastel on blue laid paper, mounted to laminated paper board
600 x 500 mm
Regenstein Collection, 1985.40

One of the few renowned women artists of her time, the Venetian Rosalba Carriera popularized the pastel portrait. In Young Lady with a Parrot, silks, ribbons, pearls, lace, flowers, hair, and flesh are defined with lightness and dexterity. The vivacious portrait of a young woman, with her porcelain-like face, cascade of golden curls, and full bosom (revealed by the parrot), exemplifies the flattering portraiture and technical mastery that brought Carriera international fame.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Paris, Galérie Georges Petit, “Exposition de cent pastels du XVIIIe siècle par Latour, Perronneau, Nattier ... [et al.],” cat. 6, cat. by the Marquise de Ganay,1908.

The Art Institute of Chicago, “The Regenstein Collection of European Drawings,” 1985-1986.

The Art Institute of Chicago: May 1, 1987-July 24, 1989 (Installation in Allerton gallery 220A).

Publication History

Louis de Fourcaud, “Le Pastel et les Pastellistes Français au XVIIIème siècle. À propos de l’Exposition des Cents Pastels,” Revue de l’Art Ancien et Moderne, XXIV (1908), pp. 13-14.

A. Lesmoine, “Exposition de Cent Pastels,” Les Arts, 82 (October 1908), pp. 14-15.

Frank Davis, “Talking about Salerooms: Masterly Menagerie,” Country Life (March 14, 1985), p. 644 (ill.).

Bernardina Sani, Rosalba Carriera (Turin, 1988), no. 92, fig. 72.

Bernardina Sani, “Rosalba Carriera’s Young Lady with a Parrot,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 17, 1 (1991), pp. 75-95 (ill.).

Jan Martineau and Andrew Robison, The Glory of Venice, Art in the Eighteenth Century (New Haven, Conn., 1995), p. 19, fig. 5.

“Maineri to Miró: The Regenstein Collection Since 1975,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, 26, 1 (2000), pp. 30-31 (ill.).

The Essential Guide (Chicago, 2009), p. 296 (ill.).

Ownership History

Maurice Gangnat, Paris (died 1924) by 1908; Casimir S. Stralem, New York; Donald S. Stralem (died 1976), New York; by descent to his wife, Mrs. Jean I. Stralem (died 1994), New York; sold, Christie’s, London, December 13, 1984, lot 181; David Tunick Inc., New York; sold to the Art Institute, 1985.