Autoritratto

This undated self-portrait by Rosalba Carriera, without a current collection record, belongs to the small group of self-images she made across her career. Self-portraits served multiple functions: professional advertisement of skill, personal document, gift to friends and institutions, and participation in the tradition of the artist's self-image that ran from Dürer through to the modern era. Carriera made at least two significant self-portraits — the 1715 Uffizi work and later examples — and additional undated self-images may belong to any phase of her career. Without provenance or dating evidence, this work's precise relationship to her documented output is difficult to establish. The undated, uncollected status of this self-portrait represents one of the more uncertain works in her catalogue.

A self-portrait by any artist demands the full range of their technical resources — there is no client to satisfy beyond the artist's own judgment. Carriera's self-portraits show the same warm flesh tones and careful blending as her commissioned work, but the expressions tend toward a more direct, less curated quality than in official portraits.