Rosalba Carriera

Rosalba’s mastery in the use of pastels has been universally celebrated, and the elegance and sophistication with which she represents her sitters were acclaimed in her own time and have continued to be admired ever since.

Small-scale portraits such as the present one, mostly in a head-and-shoulders format, are never conventional, instead reflecting the artist's spontaneous and informal, yet always acute, observation of the sitters. Here, Rosalba focuses on the subtle and refined depiction of the sitter’s face, set off by a freer and more blotchy use of pastel in the rendering of the white collar, the blue bow, and the shoulders. The same bold handling of the medium can be observed in other small-scale pastels, for instance in the portrait of Antonio Maria Zanetti in a private collection.¹ Sani, in his writing on that pastel, observed that such boldness was not an indication of an earlier stage in the artist’s stylistic evolution toward a more delicate chromatism, but rather, this style may be associated with the small dimensions of the work, resulting in its treatment as a bozzetto ('Potrebbe essere invece esser dovuti al fatto che il pastello è di piccole dimensioni e perciò è inteso come una sorta di bozzetto').²

An old inscription (1865) on the wooden backing identifies the young sitter as Gaspar Gozzi, rector of the University of Padua. However, comparison with a print by Francesco Bartolozzi of Gasparo Gozzi suggests that the present portrait is unlikely to depict the Venetian intellectual (1713–1786), author and dramatist, who was appointed by the Venetian Senate in 1774 to reorganize the university system in Padua. Gozzi, who served in this capacity until his death as a high-ranking reformer of the famous university, was never rector of the institution.

^1.B. Sani, Rosalba Carriera, Turin 2007, p. 69, no. 14, reproduced fig. 14

^2.Loc. cit.