The New International Encyclopædia/Carriera, Rosalba

CARRIERA, ka-rvn'ra. Rosalba (1675-1757). An Italian painter, born in Venice. She began while very young to design lace, and then applied herself to the decoration of snuff-boxes under Jean Stève in Venice. He taught her miniature-painting. by which and by her portraits in crayon, once compared with those of Correggio, she is principally known. In 1720, already famous, she visited Paris and painted portraits of the King Louis XV. and the nobles and ladies of his Court. She was elected a member of the Academy, and presented as her "picture of reception" a "Muse Crowned with Laurel." While in Paris she kept a diary (published by the Abbé Vianelli in 1703), which gives a most entertaining account of her visit there. She returned to Venice in 1721, visited Modena and Vienna, and was everywhere received with much enthusiasm. Toward the end of her life she became blind through overwork. There are one hundred and forty-three of her drawings in the gallery in Dresden, and the Louvre, Uffizi, and Saint Petersburg galleries own others. Consult the new ed. (French) of her diary, with life and notes (Paris, 1865) .