1710
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
A Woman Putting Flowers in Her Hair is a 1710 unspecified by Rosalba Carriera, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A woman tucks tiny flowers into her upswept hair. Her face glows soft pink against a pale background. This little painting was probably the lid of a snuff box—those small containers people carried in the 1700s. Rosalba Carriera painted it on ivory instead of the usual animal skin, which made the colors look brighter and smoother. Most artists at the time worked in oil, but she used pastels, giving her work a gentle, powdery feel. To see more of her delicate pastel portraits, look up Rosalba Carriera (Italian, 1675–1757).
Scholars generally agree that Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757) developed the art of painting miniatures on ivory, in place of the traditional support of vellum, a fine animal skin. Although she became famous as a pastel painter, in her early career, Carriera decorated ivory snuff boxes-containers used to hold powdered tobacco taken by sniffing up the nostrils-for tourists. This miniature likely served as a lid to a snuff box, due to its elliptical shape in contrast to the oval or occasionally round shapes of most other miniatures. Although painters of ivory snuff boxes used watercolor, the same…
Its extraordinary thickness indicates that this is one of Carriera's earliest experiments painting on ivory.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Rosalba Carriera (12 January 1673 – 15 April 1757) was an Italian Rococo painter.
See the richer artist pageYour cart is empty
Explore artworks →
