Saturday Salon: A Favorite Painting or Two....or Three...!

This young woman's attitude reminds me of the doomed Lucy Westenra in Bram Stoker's novel, DRACULA.

Pietro Antonio Rotari (1707 - 1762) was an Italian painter born in Verona. As a young man he studied under Antonio Balestra in Rome and Francesco Trevisani in Naples. Thereafter he returned to Verona where he set up his studio and continued to paint in the Baroque tradition.

Later he moved on to Vienna and then to Dresden, Germany. He became court painter to Empress Elizabeth I, of Russia, but spent a great deal of time painting Russian villagers and peasants. Many of these painting were originally held in collections at the Russian Academy of Art and at Catherine II's Peterhof Palace.

I am very fond of Rotari's portraits of young women, usually reading or writing a letter or just staring out at the viewer, looking delicate yet full of rosy health.

Rotari has a good palette and I really like the way he draws heads. He has a light hand too with these young girls' features. Most especially I like their coquettish expressions. Once you've seen a Rotari portrait, you will, in general, always recognize his work if seen again. He has quite a specific point of view.

To learn a bit more about Rotari, please use this link.

Pietro Antonio Rotari - self portrait.