Africa

Carriera's 'Africa,' dated 1720 and held in Dresden, belongs to the allegorical tradition of personifying continents as female figures — a tradition with roots in sixteenth-century cartography and carried into painting by numerous artists across Europe. Africa was conventionally depicted with specific attributes: darker complexion, exotic headdress, animal-skin garment, or tropical fauna. Rococo interpretations of the subject typically softened these conventions, producing images that were more decorative than ethnographic. Carriera's version, made in the year of her Paris visit, likely reflects the vogue for decorative allegorical series that were popular in early eighteenth-century France and Germany. The four-continent scheme — Europe, Asia, Africa, America — was a common decorative cycle for palace rooms and cabinets, and Carriera may have produced this as part of such a series or as a standalone allegory for a collector.

Allegorical female figures of this type required Carriera to balance readable iconographic attributes — necessary for the learned viewer to identify Africa — with the decorative grace expected of Rococo figure painting. The handling of the exotic accessories is likely more emphatic than in her purely personal portraits, ensuring clear identification.