ROSALBA CARRIERA Perfection in Pastel
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3 ROSALBA CARRIERA Perfection in Pastel Published by Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Roland Enke, Stephan Koja Distributed by Sandstein Verlag
6 7 9 11 12 14 21 31 43 CONTENTS Marion Ackermann FOREWORD Helmut Schleweis SPONSOR’S FOREWORD Stephan Koja PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & LENDERS BIOGRAPHY Roland Enke ON THE EXHIBITION Angela Oberer ROSALBA CARRIERA Venice’s Queen of Pastel Bernardina Sani THE YOUNG FREDERICK AUGUSTUS II, PRINCE OF SAXONY and Rosalba Carriera: Notes on His Sojourns in Venice Angela Oberer THE “WHITE ROSE” OF VENICE How Rosalba Carriera Became the “Premier Female Painter of Europe”
55 67 79 93 Tiziana Plebani THE PUBLIC REALM Rosalba Carriera and the New Lifestyles of Middle-Class Women in Venice Desmond Shawe-Taylor “A FLOCK OF TRAVELLING BOYS” Rosalba’s British and Irish Sitters Katja Paul ROSALBA PINXIT Reproductive Prints after Rosalba Carriera Roland Enke THE “CABINET OF ROSALBA” The Story of the Dresden Pastel Collection CATALOGUE 104 Venice 118 Rosalba Carriera 132 Network 148 Travel 158 Mythology and Religion 176 Grand Tour 184 Portraits 204 Cosmetics and Fashion 214 Pastel Cabinet 220 S antini – The Three Kings Tokens 226 Restoration 233 Deaccessioned, Sold, or Lost APPENDIX 266 Index 270 Literature 278 Photography Credits 279 List of Authors 280 Colophon
12 BIOGRAPHY 1673 Rosalba Carriera is born on 12 January 1673, the eldest daughter of the law clerk Andrea Carriera and Alba Foresti, who reside on the Rio di San Barnaba in the San Basilio neighbourhood of Venice. Together with her sisters Giovanna (1675– 1737) and Angela Cecilia (1677–1757), Rosalba receives a wide-ranging education, with instruction in embroidery, lacemaking, music, Latin, and French. It remains uncertain whether Rosalba was a self-taught artist, or instead received professional training. Mentioned as possible masters have been Jean Steve, Antonio Lazzari, Giuseppe Diamantini, Antonio Balestra, Sebastiano Bombelli, Federico Bencovich, Felice Ramelli, and Benedetto Luti. Circa 1695 Rosalba establishes her own workshop, where she gives her sisters instruction in painting, and produces her first miniatures. Giovanna becomes her most important studio assistant. 1700 Carriera starts an extensive correspondence with artists and art dealers, as well as international clients. Commencing now too is her close lifelong friendship with Antonio Maria Zanetti, who shares with her his many contacts to patrons and lovers of art. In all likelihood, it is Zanetti who advises her to take up the medium of pastel. 1704 Rosalba’s first acquisition of pastel chalk is documented in the artist’s correspondence with Christian Cole, first secretary at the British embassy in Venice. 1705 With support from Christian Cole, Carriera receives her first public recognition as a miniature painter with her admission to the Accademia di San Luca in Rome on 27 September 1705, with the highest title of accademica di merito. 1706 Numerous commissions from German noblemen, among them Christian Ludwig II, Duke of Mecklenburg, and the Polish princess and Electress of Bavaria Therese Kunigunde. Carriera politely declines an invitation from Johann Wilhelm II, Elector Palatine, to serve as court painter in Düsseldorf. 1709 Receives commissions from various European princely and royal houses, among them one from Frederick IV, King of Denmark, who visits her during a trip to Venice. 1712/13 On his Grand Tour, the Saxon Crown Prince Frederick Augustus (II) arrives in Venice for the first time. He becomes acquainted with Carriera, and his lifelong fascination with pastel painting begins. In subsequent decades, he attempts through agents to purchase all available works by her hand. 1715 Carriera becomes acquainted in Venice with the French banker and collector Pierre Crozat, an eminent advisor to Regent Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. She corresponds regularly with Crozat until his death in 1740. 1718 First meeting with the French collector Pierre-Jean Mariette during his Italian travels; the two form a close, lifelong friendship.
13 1720 Admission to the Accademia Clementina in Bologna on 14 January 1720. 1720/21 In March, after much hesitation, Rosalba accepts Crozat’s invitation to visit Paris with her mother, sisters, and her brother-inlaw Antonio Pellegrini. They stay at Crozat’s hôtel, where they meet eminent personalities such as John Law, Charles de La Fosse, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Nicolas de Largillière, François de Troy, Antoine and Charles- Antoine Coypel, Nicolas Vleughels, and Hyacinthe Rigaud. Her Parisian diary records her triumphal success: mentioned are the numerous portrait commissions she accepts as a sought-after artist, among them a number of portraits of the French King Louis XV. On 26 October 1720, she is accepted by the French Académie royale de peinture et sculpture as its first non-French female artist. She returns to Venice with her family in April–May 1721. 1723 Rosalba works for the British dealer Joseph Smith, who serves as her agent and sends her pastels to clients in England, but who also acquires 38 of her works himself. These are subsequently acquired by George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland. Her works enjoy great favour among the British upper classes in particular. Carriera spends five months in Modena, where she executes portraits of three princesses from the ducal d’Este family. 1728 The childless Carriera accepts Felicità Sartori – the fourteen-year-old niece of engraver Antonio Dall’Agata, a friend of hers – into her home as a student. Numerous letters document their friendship, which continues throughout her life, long after Sartori has left her studio. 1730 Rosalba travels to the imperial court in Vienna, where she executes numerous portraits of the Habsburgs. 1737 Death of Rosalba’s beloved sister Giovanna, an indispensable assistant. 1738 Death of Rosalba’s mother, who had energetically supported her eldest daughter. Working at various times in Carriera’s workshop are Margherita Terzi, Marianna Carlevarijs, and Luisa Bergalli, along with Felicità Sartori’s sister Angioletta. 1746 Worsening difficulties with her eyesight compel Carriera to temporarily abandon artistic activities. Multiple operations restore her vision, but only temporarily. She is cared for by her sister Angela. Inaugurated in Dresden in the picture gallery that occupies the converted Electoral Mews is the singular “Cabinet of Rosalba,” containing only work in pastel, the vast majority of which by Carriera. 1751 On 11 January Carriera dictates a letter to Mariette informing him that she is now completely blind. 1755 The first biography of Rosalba Carriera, by an unknown abbot, is published under the title Memorie intorno alla vita di Rosalba Carriera, celebre pittrice veneziana, scritte dall’Abate NN (Memoirs on the life of Rosalba Carriera, the most celebrated female painter in Venice, composed by the Abbot NN). 1757 Rosalba Carriera dies on 15 April 1757, aged 84. She is interred in the family tomb in the parish church of Santi Vito e Modeste (since destroyed) alongside her sister Giovanna. She ranks among the most celebrated and prosperous Venetian artists of her century.
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21 Angela Oberer Venice’s Queen of Pastel ROSALBA CARRIERA
22 Rosalba Carriera was born in Venice on 12 January 1673 to Alba Foresti and Andrea Carriera, a clerk in the employ of the city-republic. She was given the name Rosalba Zuanna (Giovanna) at her baptism ten days later.1 A second daughter, born in October 1675, was also baptized Rosalba Giovanna, probably in view of the perilous state of her elder sister’s health. Fearing that their eldest child would die in infancy, the parents decided to give the same name to their second daughter.2 To distinguish the two girls, the elder was called Rosalba while her younger sister was known as Giovanna (and, variously, Nenetta and Zanina within the family). A third daughter, Anzola (Angela) Cecilia, was born two years later, in September 1677. All three daughters were taught needle-lacemaking by their mother, an art for which Venice was famed, although they also had lessons in Latin, French, andmusic, which went well beyond the sort of education typically given to the daughters of non-aristocratic Venetian families in the late 17th century.3 Exactly when Rosalba first took up painting is not known. Likewise, the question of who first gave her art lessons is still a subject of debate due to the vagueness of the sources.4 However, we do know that she would have instructed her sisters in painting froman early age, in keeping with the ideas of a time when first-born daughters were expected to take responsibility for their younger siblings. Over the years, Giovanna came to be Rosalba’s most important assistant both inside and outside the studio. She spent her entire life supporting and accompanying her elder sister, while Angela appears to have largely abandoned painting andmarried the painter Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini at some point around 1703/04. In 1700, the Carriera familymoved out of the Rio di San Barnaba to a house on the Grand Canal next to the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, which today houses the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (fig. 1). That same year, Rosalba began collecting her extensive correspondence. Published in 1985 in two volumes edited by Bernardina Sani, these writings represent an invaluable treasury of documents unique in art history, which still today continue to provide scholars with a rich seam of materials on Carriera.5 The early letters lend a number of illuminating insights, such as how by her late twenties the artist had already established a wide-ranging international network of customers, who bought her early works (Carriera was still painting Fig. 1 The Ca’Biondetti, the Carriera family’s palazzo on the Grand Canal in Venice
23 miniatures at this point in her career) by ordering them directly from her studio while in Venice or doing so entirely through correspondence, having the small-format pictures delivered to their homes. However, the artist also boasted influential friends in Italy and Venice itself.6 Antonio Maria Zanetti, an art collector and writer, as well as an artist in his own right (known today primarily for his caricatures of famous personalities from the world of Venetian art and culture) numbered among Carriera’s closest lifelong friends and supporters, as would also, in later years, the author and translator Luisa Bergalli (see essay by Tiziana Plebani in this volume).7 Intellectuals like Giovanni Battista Recanati and fellow painters such as Sebastiano Bombelli, Antonio Balestra, and Giovanni Felice Ramelli were also among the closest friends of the artist and her family. Internationally renowned performers such as the dancer Barbara Campanini (see cat. 50) and singer Faustina Bordoni (see cat. 51) chose Carriera when the time came to have their portraits painted. The first official recognition for her achievements in painting came in 1705, when Carriera was officially inducted on 27 September as a painter of miniatures into the Accademia di San Luca in Rome. It warrants mentioning that she was awarded the special distinction of an accademica di merito (academician on merit) rather than the status more typically accorded to women: honorarymembership, or accademica d’onore.8 After a great deal of hesitation, she eventually submitted her reception piece of a miniature of a young girl with a dove, which was given the title Allegory of Innocence in the academy’s early guidebooks (fig. 2).9 The turn of the 18th century and her first admission to an academy coincided with a new phase in Carriera’s artistic career, when the artist first discovered pastel painting. As with attempts to discover who trained the artist or how exactly she first came to start painting miniatures, it has to date not been possible to establish beyond doubt who or what led Carriera to take up pastel painting.10 One concrete date can be gleaned, however, from a letter Fig. 2 (cat. 31) Rosalba Carriera Girl with Dove (Innocence) c. 1705 · tempera on ivory · 10.5 × 8.5 cm Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, inv. no. 442
24 written by Christian Cole, who was in Venice from 1707 as secretary to the British ambassador LordManchester. The letter confirms that she had taken up pastel painting by no later than 1704.11 Carriera was deft at marketing both her miniatures and pastels to the constant stream of monied tourists that flowed into Venice. It is estimated that up to around 30,000 travellers stayed in the city every year to sample the unique topography, opera and concert performances, Carnival, courtesans, gambling, and a variety of other pleasurable activities for which Venice was renowned.12 For northern European travellers visiting Italy as part of their “Grand Tour,” a trip to Carriera’s studio became an obligatory stop-off as somewhere they could place orders in person, before taking the artworks back home in their luggage. The painter became so famous in Great Britain that even non-autograph pictures were marketed as works by “Roselby” (the version of her name that took hold among English buyers).13 However, her expansive network of connections to art lovers and collectors in northern Europe, to whom she supplied her works by post or courier, were another important component of her professional career. One particularly noteworthy example was the electoral-royal court in Dresden, which was home to a collection of Carriera’s pastels acquired during the reign of King Augustus the Strong and subsequently expanded by his successor, Augustus III. Carriera’s enormous success ultimately resulted in pastel paintings becoming known and indeed popular throughout Europe. As well as wanting to own a work by Carriera, there was also a growing clamour among European rulers to employ the famous painter at their own courts. For instance, in Düsseldorf it was JohannWilhelm, Elector Palatine, and his second wife, AnnaMaria Luisa de’ Medici, who in 1710 tried to woo Carriera to work for them. The elector already had a number of artists and musicians from Italy in his service, having deliberately set about fostering an Italianate cultural climate at his court. However, neither the efforts of his secretary and agent in Venice, Giorgio Maria Rapparini, nor the promise of a reassuringly familiar atmosphere among fellow Italians – and even the prospect of meeting the flower painter Rachel Ruysch – were enough to persuade the artist to accept the flattering invitation.14With so many customers already buying Carriera’s paintings, there was now simply no need for her to become dependent on one patron alone or tomove away fromher home city. Thus, for the entire first half of her life, she chose to stay on the banks of the Grand Canal and work from home. Carriera’s ambivalent attitude towards travel only changed after meeting her fellow painter Nicolas Vleughels, who stayed in Venice in 1707 and 1708. Similarly, her relationship to Pierre Crozat and, in later years, to the art critic Pierre-Jean Mariette were to play a significant role in her eventual decision to spend time away from Venice. While it is entirely possible that all three men invited the painter to Paris, it was the renowned banker, connoisseur, and collector Crozat who would ultimately get the credit for persuading Carriera to travel for the first time to further her career. Crozat had visited Venice in 1715 while acting as art advisor and official agent for Philippe II, Duke of Orléans and Regent of France.15 Even after returning to France, Crozat continued to correspond with Carriera, seeking tirelessly to persuade the painter to agree to come and stay in Paris – and not just anywhere, of course, but as a guest at his hôtel (private mansion) on the Rue de Richelieu.16 It was only after several letters from Crozat listing all the opportunities and advantages that a residency on the banks of the Seine would have to offer that the painter – freshly admitted into the academic ranks of the Accademia Clementina in Bologna – finally acceded to leaving Venice in February 1720. Accompanied by her sister Giovanna and her mother, she would travel to Paris, with her friend Zanetti escorting the ladies to their destination.17 In the 18th century, Paris was Europe’s second largest city after London, ruled following Louis XIV’s death by his nephew Philippe II, who was to hold the reins of power until the Sun King’s great-grandson Louis XV came of age. With the royal court having moved back to Paris from Versailles, the period of Philippe II’s regency was already celebrated for having ushered in an era seen as liberty- loving, urbane, and sophisticated – albeit dogged by scandals and debauchery.18 As Crozat’s guests, the Carrieras enjoyed the privilege of being promptly introduced to the city’s very highest social circles. As well as the régent himself and his wife, Françoise Marie de Bourbon, they also met numerous other members of the court and representatives of the most senior ranks of aristocracy. Their acquaintances also included a glittering array of figures from Parisian artistic and cultural life, such as Pierre-Jean Mariette and the respected antiquarian and collector Anne-Claude-Philippe Tubières, comte de Caylus.19 Mariette, known in his day as a connoisseur, collector, art lover, and writer, was also working in this period on an encyclopaedia of artists, for which he was compiling reviews and notes on collections and biographies. It was not until 1851 that the fruits of Mariette’s labours, which includes an entry on Carriera, were finally published by Chennevières andMontaiglon in a five-volume work entitled the Abecedario.20 Among the artist’s early biographers was Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d’Argenville, royal secretary and avocat from 1743, who first met Carriera in Crozat’s mansion. With interests including art drawing and engraving, in 1745 he eventually published Abrégé de la vie des plus fameux peintres, in which Carriera was a subject of one of his potted biographies of the era’s “most famous painters.”21
25 Perhaps Carriera’s most prestigious commission was awarded by Philippe II himself shortly after her arrival in Paris. She was asked to paint a portrait of the then tenyear-old Louis XV, which required the painter to come to court on several occasions. Carriera wrote regular diary entries during her time in Paris, leaving us with detailed reports of these meetings at the royal court. Furthermore, her notes serve to reflect just how successful and hence prolific her time in Paris proved to be. Her paintings met with such acclaim that she was practically swamped with commissions. She took to receiving clients from as early as six in the morning to keep up with the sheer volume of portrait requests, entering into a period of astonishing productivity that ultimately gave rise to some 50 pastel paintings in the space of a little over a year.22 Also of particular significance for the artist during her time in Paris must have been her interactions with fellow artists, including such figures as Nicolas de Largillière, Jean-François de Troy, and the court portraitist Hyacinthe Rigaud.23 According to her diary entries, she also met the pastel painters Jean-Baptiste Massé, Jacques-Antoine Arlaud, and Joseph Vivien.24 She would have doubtlessly found Vivien’s work especially interesting due to the exceptional role his pastel paintings enjoyed in Paris salon exhibitions.25 Meeting Jean-Antoine Watteau prompted Carriera to pay him several subsequent visits, prior eventually to painting his portrait in February 1721 (fig. 3). His fragile health already clear to see in the painting, Watteau eventually died at just 37 years of age shortly after Carriera left Paris.26 Two other illustrious representatives of Parisian cultural life should also be mentioned here: Antoine Coypel and his son Charles-Antoine Coypel. In addition to being one of the most celebrated artists of the French court, bearing the official title Premier peintre du Roy, Antoine Coypel had also served as the director of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture from 1714 andwas a true admirer of Carriera’s art, whose influence even extended into his own work.27 The absolute highpoint of her travels ultimately came in the formof a unique honour: on 26 October 1720, Carriera was admitted to the Académie royale, joining the ranks of perhaps the most prestigious cultural institution in all of Europe, and, moreover, as the first and hitherto only foreign female artist to do so.28 However, as with the academy in Rome years previously, Carriera took her time creating her reception piece. It was only after returning to Venice in spring 1721 that the artist slowly set to work on creating the academy- bound pastel. In order not to stretch the patience of the French too thin, she sent a letter in October 1721 to Paris in which, true to the classical tradition of ekphrasis, she outlined a description of the work.29 The painting was to depict a nymph from Apollo’s retinue (fig. 4). Although part of the official iconography of the French court since the reign of Louis XIV, the sun god’s presence is merely limited to the allusion in the painting’s title. In keeping with a common visual practice in France, Carriera here condenses the retinue to a sole female figure by depicting just one nymph. The subject is reminiscent of a marble figure in the sculptural group Apollo Attended by the Nymphs by François Girardon and Thomas Regnaudin, which Carriera would certainly have had occasion to admire in the gardens of Versailles (fig. 6). At the same time, her nymphs’ pose assumes the form of an ingenious reimagining of Leonardo da Vinci’s Saint John the Baptist (fig. 5) – in other words, the artist managed deftly and judiciously to unite in a single pastel allusions to classical literature, French state iconography, and a paragon of Italian genius.30 The work met with considerable enthusiasm in Paris, and commissions for the Queen of Pastel, as she was now known, continued to flow from France even after her return to Venice. Fig. 3 Rosalba Carriera Portrait of a Gentleman (Jean-Antoine Watteau[?]) 1721 · pastel on paper 55 × 43 cm Treviso, Musei Civici di Treviso
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55 Tiziana Plebani Rosalba Carriera and the New Lifestyles of Middle-Class Women in Venice THE PUBLIC REALM
56 Rosalba Carriera and the Delights of the Dolce Vita in Venice Let us begin by taking a look at the ingredients which contributed to Rosalba Carriera’s success. How do we account for the fact that she became a famous artist in her own country, and even more famous abroad, when she was still just a young woman? Of course, it had to do with her skill in distilling the tastes of her time in her paintings, and her ability to make her portraits speak to that special sentiment of sympathy celebrated by the culture of sensibility and ardently championed by David Hume.1 But her ability to attract attention abroad can also be attributed to the fascination that Venice itself held for foreigners, not least because of the unusual lifestyle of its citizens – and especially its womenfolk. The freedom enjoyed by Venetian women was noted with amazement in the accounts of travellers, aristocrats, and worldly aesthetes, for whoma visit to the city on the lagoonwas an essential part of the Grand Tour. According to the Frenchman François Maximilien Misson, writing as early as the late 17th century, nuns ventured out incognito, while ladies availed themselves of the services of gondolieri to move around the city unmolested.2 The severe Montesquieu, who arrived in Venice on 16 August 1728, went even further, claiming that the local custom of mask-wearing meant that Venetian ladies “vont avec qui elles veulent, et où elles veulent” (go wherever they want, with whomever they want).3 For the French philosopher, this sort of freedomwas a sign of spiritual decadence, and only helped confirm his low opinion of La Serenissima’s republican- aristocratic government. For the young English aristocrat Horace Walpole, on the other hand, it was all part of the carefree joie de vivre which one came to the city to enjoy. While Paris was the undisputed mistress of the salon and the art of conversation, social intercourse in the French capital was always closely linked to the court and its intrigues. Venice, by contrast, was remarkable for the breadth of its social life, which thrived all over the city in cafes, clubs, theatres, casinos, convent parlours, conservatoires, and hospitals, where young orphan girls (le putte della musica) were taught music and dancing,4 not to mention the outdoor realm of its public squares and streets.5 During her stay in the city, Madame du Boccage noted in her travel diary that the freedom enjoyed by women in Paris was “immeasurably” exceeded6 by that of the women of Venice, especially during the hours of darkness. Venice did not escape the general tide of urban redevelopment which swept the great cities of Europe from the end of the 17th century onwards. In the face of population growth, ever-increasing consumption, and burgeoning commercial wealth, there was a need to improve the quality of metropolitan life. A sine qua non of this process was providing cities with street lighting. Venice was as forward-thinking as any European metropolis in this respect: in 1732, the Senate voted to install 843 oil lanterns to provide light and security at night, thus making it even easier for women to move about.7 In 1763, the French abbot Gabriel-François Coyer remarked that the streets of Venice were far better lit “than is usually the case in Italy.”8 Another source of astonishment for visitors was that many of the Venetian patriciate liked to congregate in small rooms or apartments named casini with members of the middle classes – and indeed anyone else able to pay their way – to engage in conversation and other amusements, not all of which were bawdy or involved gambling. As travellers also noted, even the ladies had their own casini to frequent, just like their husbands. In 1744, a survey conducted by the Venetian State Inquisition – the authority responsible for public order – counted a total of 118 casini. By the time of the republic’s demise in 1797, the number had risen to 136.9 A high proportion of these spaces was concentrated in the city’s main entertainment district, which ran from the Piazza SanMarco to the neighbourhoods of SanMoisè and Frezzeria. This was the area where the Post Office was located and where the writers of the city’s newssheets gleaned their information. A number of casini could also be found in peripheral areas, like the Giudecca. Others again were situated right next to the social spaces which formed the beating heart of Venetian society – above all, the theatres, which were frequented not only by large numbers of foreigners but also by Venetians of every class. Patricians, the middle classes, and the common people may have been seated in separate areas, but all were united in the shared custom and pleasure of theatregoing. What particularly impressed visitors to the city, the British in particular, was its café life. The city was packed with lively coffeehouses, often with interior or adjacent “private parlours” for conversation and club meetings. There were so many of them that it was decided in 1759 to restrict their number to a mere 206 (fig. 1). In Britain, the home of clubs and associations, coffeehouses had started springing up by the mid-1600s. They represented a strictly male domain, however, admittedly open to men of all social classes but considered unsuitable for respectable women. The female presence was restricted to the women who ran them or worked as waitresses, or to the prostitutes that would use the premises to solicit clients. In France, too, where the development of coffeehouses began somewhat later, the clientele was mainly, though not exclusively, male. If women were present, they tended to be employees, the wives or daughters of café owners, waitresses, prostitutes, servants, or married women closely accompanied by their husbands. The ambience
57 was not considered suitable for upper-class women, who, to preserve their respectability, would always have to be introduced by a male intermediary.10 Such, then, was the incredible mingling of sexes and classes that characterised Venetian life – for visitors, a source of astonishment, fascination, and seduction. For the city’s ruling elite, however, it was also a source of anxiety: the coffeehouses had become the most important venues for meeting and exchanging information, and the fact that the nobility were consorting with other classes, and especially with foreigners, raised the spectre of espionage and the leaking of state secrets. Women’s freedom of movement – especially that of patrician women – began to worry the inquisitors, too: “Since it has become the general custom for women, even of noble status, to expose themselves to the eyes of all on streets and squares, even at times when the wearing of masks is not allowed, the natural inhibitions which arise from a sense of modesty have receded and women have even taken to entering cafes.”11 In 1766, following various rulings requiring coffeehouses to close atmidnight and remove chairs and benches overnight, the inquisitors went so far as to completely forbid women of all social classes from entering cafés. The order was felt to be so nonsensical, however, so contrary to the Venetian way of life and the joy of freeing women from the strictures of the past, that a wave of protest ensued, led by coffeehouse proprietors and the wider citizenry, which even found expression in verse: “E i caffè fe’ serar? O che cogioni!” (And you want to close the cafes? Shame on you!).12 In the end, the measures were revoked. Nobody in the city wanted to see its public space divided up in this way and it was agreed that coffeehouses were to be for the use of both sexes. This episode aside, the whole of Venetian public life was typified at this period by conviviality and diversity.13 It was no wonder, therefore, that by 1706 Rosalba Carriera was already receiving commissions from illustrious foreigners – such as the Bavarian prince, Maximilian II Fig. 1 Antonio Canal, called Canaletto Piazza San Marco and the Colonnade of the Procuratie c. 1756 · oil on canvas 46.4 × 38.1 cm London, The National Gallery, inv. no. NG 2516
58 Fig. 2 (cat. 49) Rosalba Carriera Portrait of Caterina Sagredo Barbarigo c. 1735–1740 · pastel on paper · 42 × 33 cm Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, gal. no. P 16
59 Emanuel von Wittelsbach – for portraits of Venice’s most beautiful women, especially those who were not only famous for their charm but whose personal lifestyles breathed colour and vivacity into the city scene. For example, Rosalba received several requests for portraits of the renowned salon hostess, Lucrezia Basadonna Mocenigo, including commissions from JohannWilhelm II, Elector Palatine (conveyed by his secretary, the writer Giorgio Maria Rapparini from Bologna) and Christian Ludwig II, Count of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, whose emissary was Hans Bötticher.14 During a visit to Venice, Frederick IV, King of Denmark and Norway, asked Rosalba for miniature portraits on ivory of twelve Venetian noblewomen. According to Pietro Del Negro, these included a lady Basadonna, Marietta Correr (Maria Donà, wife of Filippo Corner di San Marcuola), Maria Vendramin Zenobio, possibly Elena Correr Piscopia in Foscari, andMaria Civran Labia.15 These initial commissions led tomore patrician ladies sitting for their portraits, one of whom was Caterina Sagredo Barbarigo. Married twice – first, in 1732, to Antonio Pesaro, and then, in 1739, following the early death of her first husband, to Gregorio Barbarigo – she was the daughter of a family of patrons and collectors, and commissioned her first portrait from Rosalba herself, to promote her own celebrity (fig. 2).16 Educated, lively, and eager for adventure – as can easily be seen from the pose in which Rosalba chose to portray her – she was famous for her travels abroad. In Venice she was admired by foreigners, even learning English with the help of Robert Darcy, Fourth Earl of Holderness, the British ambassador to the city on the lagoon.17 Meanwhile, the French ambassador, François-Joachim de Bernis, subsequently remembered her as a dear friend, whom he sorely missed on his return home.18 LadyMaryWortleyMontagu wrote to the cultured Venetian, connoisseur of beauty, and traveller Francesco Algarotti, also an acquaintance of Carriera’s: “J’aime beaucoupMadame de Barbarigo. Elle a une bonté de Cœur qui m’enchante” (I like Madame Barbarigo very much. She has a delightfully kind heart).19 Algarotti, for his part, praised her outstanding abilities as a hostess, welcoming refined and elegant company to her salon. Her circle of friends and acquaintances was large; Lady Montagu noted, for example: “Yesterday evening at the Academy with Mme Barbarigo in a company of three or four hundred people.”20 Caterina Sagredo Barbarigo felt just as much at home at large receptions of this type as in the smaller circles that gathered at her own casini. Madame du Boccage reports that she had been “au casin de Mme. Barbarigo”21 in San Basso and had met her translator Luisa Bergalli there (of whommore later), along with the latter’s husband, Gasparo Gozzi, whom she had already got to know a few days earlier at the home of Filippo Farsetti. The casino which Barbarigo had rented in Giudecca, which had a large garden that she had transformed into a stable called “the Cavallerizza” to indulge her great passion for riding, had been closed down by the Inquisitori di Stato (Venetian State Inquisition) in 1747 to prevent any hobnobbing with foreigners holding diplomatic posts.22 What links did Rosalba have with these patrician women? It must be borne in mind that Rosalba was no frequenter of aristocratic salons, not even those visited by the ladies she portrayed. What she shared with some clients was a bond of mutual respect, while others expressed their appreciation through services or favours, renting their houses in the country to her, for example, or helping her to dispatch her own works to clients farther afield. Despite this, Rosalba did not feel drawn to their circle, perhaps because of the difference in social class, but maybe also because of differences in character and attitudes. She wished, as Pietro Del Negro puts it, to embody “amiddle-class version”23 of the female active pursuits that had emerged in Venice, thanks to its broad and socially mixed public arena. A Resolutely Middle-Class Sociability We may assume, then, that, for her foreign clients, Rosalba Carriera epitomised the Venetian lifestyle – a lifestyle which she interpreted in her own way and reflected abundantly in her correspondence. She shared not only her midday and evening meals with friends, foreigners, and a circle of Venetian acquaintances – including, above all, her good friend Tonino (Antonio Maria Zanetti) – but also walks, visits to exhibitions and galleries, and the festivities of the Carnival season. The merry band mingled with the spectating crowds at regattas, frequented cafés, and enjoyed the festivals and events that made Venice famous as a place of entertainment. “On Tuesday, go wearing a mask again, for my sake,”24 Tonino wrote to her on 21 September 1704, while away from Venice for a while. For the most part, the circle of friends who clustered around Rosalba, her sisters, and her mother represented the professional middle classes, not the titled ladies of leisure. It included the medical doctor Marco Musalo, notaries Carlo and Gabriele Gabrieli, the Boschetti family, painters Balestra and Antonio Dall’Agata, as well as the faithful Tonino, and was a company that radiated both cultural sophistication and joie de vivre. Corresponding with Rosalba from Rome, the painter and miniaturist Felice Ramelli mentioned their mutual friends in Venice. In his letter of 12 January 1704, he recalled the pleasures the group had enjoyed together and regretted not being with them: “If I were in Venice, we would share an omelette and sausage.”25 Christian Cole, too, secretary to the British ambassador in Venice, wrote
92
93 Roland Enke The Story of the Dresden Pastel Collection THE “CABINET OF ROSALBA”
94 Fig. 1 (cat. 132) Michael Keyl Plan de la galérie royale de Dresde before 1753 · engraving Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, inv. no. A 158316
95 In 1711, Frederick Augustus, Elector of Saxony, embarked on an extended educational tour of Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy that would continue into 1719. By February of 1712, he had already reached Venice, a city still new to him. Like his father, Augustus the Strong, he would develop a great fondness for the art of the city on the lagoon, as shown by the numerous works in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister by artists such as Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese, and continuing all the way to Tiepolo and Canaletto. He also cultivated a special passion for the pastels of Rosalba Carriera, then a rising star among Venice’s artists. An ardent admirer of Carriera’s works, he “was prepared to pay any price for highly-prized works by Rosalba, no matter where they were found.”1 Although the provenance and acquisition history of many pictures by Carriera remain unclear, the purchases of large ensembles of her works are documented in a number of cases. Unfortunately, however, the vague titles listed in these documents make it difficult to identify individual works. We know, for example, that Count Francesco Algarotti was tasked by Augustus III with commissioning fromCarriera a series of the Four Elements, which she duly executed between 1744 and 1746 (see cats. 78–81).2 In 1750, twelve pastels by Rosalba from the estate of the savant Giambattista Recanati (whose widow Fioravanza Ravagnani sold them in order to acquire a Meissen porcelain service) arrived in Dresden, with Giovanni Pietro Minelli acting as intermediary agent.3 And in 1753, the cavalier Andrea Diedo received a chocolate and coffee service as compensation for five pastels by Carriera.4 The final group accession purportedly occurred following Rosalba’s death in August 1757, when Augustus is said to have purchased all of the works that remained in her studio,5 but there is something dubious about this assertion, since we know that a number of pastels were instead inherited by family members of hers, and no painting by her is explicitly mentioned in the post-mortem inventory.6 The collection of the British consul Joseph Smith – a patron of the arts and close friend of Carriera who owned no less than 38 of her works – was shipped to England, where they were absorbed by the collection of King George III; 23 of these pastels were indeed subsequently offered to Augustus III in 1760,7 but failed to arrive in Saxony as a consequence of the Seven Years’ War. In any case, assembled in Dresden now was thus the largest collection of pastels by Rosalba Carriera anywhere, consisting of altogether 157 works.8 This extraordinary ensemble of pastels by Rosalba, amassed over a period of several decades, seems to have given rise to the idea of presenting them together, separately from the oil paintings, in a “Cabinet of Rosalba.” They were joined by: four pastels by the cosmopolitan artist Jean-Étienne Liotard, a native of Geneva, among them the celebrated Chocolate Girl; two works by Maurice Quentin de Latour, the most esteemed French pastellist; as well as ten pastels by the German Anton Raphael Mengs. Johann Christoph Knöffel’s conversion, in 1745/46, of the former Stallhof (mews) into a picture gallery, or Gemäldegalerie, also presented the elector with the opportunity to create a special exhibition space for the pastels. In the first volume of works in the gallery, entitled Recueil d’Estampes d’après les plus célèbres Tableaux de la Galerie Royale de Dresde and published by Carl Heinrich von Heineken in 1753, a floor plan by Michael Keyl identifies the room labelled “C” as a “Cabinet de Pastel” (fig. 1). From the Residenzschloss, the elector would enter the Gemäldegalerie via the Long Corridor (today the Gewehrgalerie/Firearms Gallery), and hence always entered the Pastel Cabinet first. The cabinet itself consisted of a rectangular room, located in the upper story, measuring approximately 55 square metres and with a height of nine meters. It received light from the northeast via two windows; the wall facing the mews was sealed. The earliest description of the interior design is from Giovanni Lodovico Bianconi, although it appeared only somewhat later, in 1781: “The Rosalba Cabinet is a large roomwith pale green wallpaper, and looks out onto a broad, beautiful street. The long wall opposite the windows is covered from top to bottom with the loveliest pastel paintings, all by the hand of this good painter, more than 100, perhaps. On display in their midst, as though in her own home, is a self-portrait by the immortal Venetian, which stands out from all of the others. On the two side walls, where two gilded doors face one another, and through which visitors enter, are pastels by Mengs, Liotard, Mr. De la Tour, and several others, all among the best pastel painters of our century. The fourth long wall, the one opposite Rosalba, has only windows of broad plate glass, while mounted from top to bottom on the walls between them [negl’ interfenestri] are large Frenchmirrors, thereby enchanting the viewer by doubling these delightful objects. Like the bright glazing and gilded frames, the pastels are all identical in size. The floor is inlaid with all manner of foreign woods; the arched ceiling is white, but decorated and gilded in the Arab style.”9 In his Umständliche Beschreibung (Detailed Description), Johann Christian Hasche, a chronicler of Dresden, relativizes Bianconi’s elaborate descriptionwith the words: “When printed reports tell of a painted hall, and prattle on about statues, ensembles of marble and metal, porphyry and serpentine, this only confirms that [their authors] have never actually seen it. The ceiling is white, unpainted, the walls are covered in green damask with goldmouldings and clad above in similar leafwork; the pictures hang on the walls in splendid, hand-carved gold frames. Displayed on the lower rails of the frames is the royal coat of arms,
96 and on the upper rails, the crown in gold [...]. One wall is hung with pictures under the most finely polished glass; the wall opposite is decorated with tall, splendid mirrors, and provides unrestricted views.”10 Two drawings from the conversion phase of 1745/46 clarify the design:11 the elevation view (fig. 2) shows two tall windows that terminate in round arches. The base of the wall is clad in profiledwainscoting. Decorating the continuous cornice above the windows is gilded rocaille ornamentation that continues onto the vaulted ceiling and forms a crowned “A” – for Augustus – at the centre of the long walls. With their gilded frames, the pastels must have contributed strongly to the overall visual impact. Significant as well was the multiplication of motifs by the above-mentioned mirrors, not shown in this view. It remains uncertain, however, whether the two drawings document the designs prior to their execution, or instead record them as implemented. Nor can it be ascertained whether the green wash shown on the end wall in the sectional rendering reflects the colour that was actually present in the cabinet (see cat. 137). Unfortunately, no depictions or photographs of the roomexist, nor has any portion of the decor survived: the building was almost completely destroyed during World War II, and the room was given a false ceiling in the course of reconstruction carried out between 1954 and 1968. While it is indisputable that this incomparable collection of pastels can be attributed to the elector-king’s personal taste, it is unclear just who took the decision to display them together in a special gallery of their own. It cannot be ruled out entirely that Algarotti was the source of the idea of relocating the collection of old masters into a future electoral-royal museum to make way for a presentation of art by living masters.12 Meanwhile, the limits of neatly dividing old masters from new became evident when, in a letter addressed to Heinrich von Brühl in 1745, the very same Algarotti conveyed Carriera’s judgment, according to which the recent acquisition of Liotard’s Fig. 2 (cat. 136) Unknown draughtsman, after Johann Christoph Knöffel Electoral Mews, Pastel Cabinet, elevation 1745/46 · pen and ink, wash Dresden, Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Sachsen, inv. no. M 6.Vl.Bl. 9
97 Chocolate Girl had effected a kind of stylistic shift, rendering all previous pastels out of date, including her own:13 With just one accession, one living artist could suddenly make the art of his contemporaries appear old. Regarding the impulse behind installing the Pastel Cabinet in the mews, the Venetian Pietro Maria Guarienti seems a likely candidate. He had already been significantly involved in the purchase of the ducal collection inModena in 1745/46, and was ultimately appointed to the post of surveyor of the elector’s pictures. During his time, he arranged the new presentation of Italian oil paintings in the inner galleries of the converted stables building.14 Following the inauguration of the picture gallery in 1746, the Pastel Cabinet must have been rehung a number of times in order to integrate subsequent acquisitions of works by Carriera into the hanging scheme. Here, there are no available primary sources: the two first editions of the gallery catalogue, compiled by Johann Anton Riedel and Christian Friedrich Wenzel, appeared only years later, in 1765 and 1771. Moreover, they list the exhibited works by artist, making it impossible to localise their respective positions on the walls.15 This situation changes progressively with the catalogues that appeared regularly beginning in 1801, which list the pastels in groups according to the hanging scheme, although their positioning still cannot be reconstructed with precision.16 During the 19th century, and despite the dominant status enjoyed by Carriera’s works, Liotard’s Chocolate Girl became the favourite of many visitors, its elaborately detailed frame, too, helping to set it off from the mass of society portraits, which collectively made an almost uniform impression (fig. 3).17 There were no concrete precedents for the Pastel Cabinet, nor did it become a model for subsequent collections or museums. In Dresden, the art collection of the Saxon Prime Minister Count Heinrich von Brühl was oriented towards the electoral-royal collection, while however ranking below it.18 Brühl’s study, at least, is said to have been decorated with enamel and pastel paintings.19 It was also reported that the Dresden landscape painter Johann Alexander Thiele produced an entire Pastel Cabinet for Brühl: although no works by him in this medium are documented, it was said that “some regarded him as the most eminent German artist when it came to landscapes executed in pastels.”20 Evidently, Brühl owned no pictures by Rosalba Carriera.21 For the pastels, the relocation in 1855 of the Dresden Gemäldegalerie to the Semper Building, an extension of the Zwinger, meant a progressive diminishment of its formerly splendid presentation. This was accompanied by an increasingly negative valuation of the art of the Rococo – and not just in Dresden. The pastels were now accommodated in two ground-floor rooms facing Theaterplatz to the north.22 Adjoining them was a cabinet devoted to works by ChristianWilhelmErnst Dietrich and four rooms reserved for pictures by Antonio Canaletto and Bernardo Bellotto. According to the gallery inventory, which appeared in 1856 after completion of the new installation in the Zwinger, altogether 178 pastels were on view.23 In 1889, when Anton Raphael Mengs’s collection of plaster casts was relocated to the Albertinum from the east hall of the Semper Building’s ground floor, these “new galleries were devoted entirely to the 18th century, so that for the first time, these paintings, so important for the history of art in Dresden, were united to form a cohesive ensemble.”24 The pastels, too, were integrated into this hanging scheme, and were displayed together with the miniatures, initially in a cabinet located in the northwest part of the building, and later in the circular connecting room between the Semper Building and the Zwinger.25 Fig. 3 Jean-Étienne Liotard Chocolate Girl c. 1744 · pastel on parchment Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, gal. no. P 161
104 VENICE The city of Venice resulted from the settlement of smaller islands located in an estuarine delta that is situated at the mouths of a number of rivers. The lagoon is marked off from the Adriatic Sea; an arm of the River Brenta formed what would later become the Grand Canal. According to a legend that only emerged in theMiddle Ages, the city was founded by refugees on 25March 421, although settlements had existed on the islands since the Etruscan and Roman eras. The city remained under Byzantine administration until the 8th century. The quest for political autarky resulted in a complex – and complicated – system of government. The large, prominent patrician families divided power amongst themselves, always with the aim of preventing a single doge or family from controlling the city’s destiny. Venice’s ideal location at the intersection of trade routes, combined with its flourishing shipbuilding industry, culminated in the ascendance of the Serenissima Repubblica di SanMarco (Most Serene Republic of Saint Mark), a colonial trade and maritime power that dominated large areas of the Adriatic and Greece, as well as coastal regions along the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, until its collapse in 1797. All of this increased the wealth of Venice, which became the cultural hub of northern Italy, and a pivot point between “orient” and “occident.” The city’s most prestigious centres of power were Saint Mark’s Square with the Basilica, named after the city’s patron saint, the Doge’s Palace, and the Procuratie.
105 In the architectural realm as well, a confluence of influences shaped Venice’s outward appearance, including the splendid palazzi with their Venetian-Gothic facades. The city was also an epicentre of intellectual activity, as reflected in its numerous publishers of books and prints, numbering at times in the hundreds. In the Renaissance and Baroque period the painting of the Venetians was readily distinguishable from that of Rome or Florence, in particular through its emphasis on colour. International guests were a commonplace sight in daily life, and a festive culture evolved that used the singular townscape as a stage setting. This aspect becomes particularly striking in 18th-century veduta painting, whose most celebrated exponents include Luca Carlevarijs, but, first and foremost, Antonio Canal, called Canaletto. In these grandiose panoramic images, which often take up established motifs such as the Doge’s Palace or the lifeline of the Canal Grande, local inhabitants and everyday activities are also deemed worthy of depiction. To some extent, these images – many commissioned by aristocratic or princely travellers – visualise the city as it still appears today. Other painters, like Sebastiano Ricci, Giambattista Piazzetta, and Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini – who was married to Carriera’s sister Angela – number among the protagonists of Venetian Rococo painting. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, finally, was a singular presence among Italian artists – not just in Venice itself, but throughout Italy. His frescoes and altarpieces received high praise, and a successful career led him to Germany and Spain as well. Venetian artists were well acquainted with one another, and often collaborated closely – particularly in the field of printmaking. Rosalba Carriera was among La Serenissima’s most celebrated artists. For decades she was the city’s premier portraitist and a veritable institution – anyone who was anyone sought to commission a likeness from her. She lived with her family in a small palazzo on the Canal Grande, where she probably also maintained her studio. This location must have been selected with deliberate intent, since the Ca’Biondetti is readily accessible by gondola, and hence ideal for eminent personalities who wished to remain incognito. Among these were not just senior officials fromVenice, but also grand tourists fromBritain, France, Germany, and Denmark. Although the city and the republic of Venice lost much of their importance as a political power and commercial centre during the 18th century, cultural life flourished there all the more. Guests arrived, not just for Carriera’s sake, but also for the numerous festivals, the music, and the arts. They augmented their art collections with works purchased in the city, and all of them enjoyed the sense of freedom Venice offered. RE
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