Damenbildnis, Brustbild

This early Carriera work from around 1700, held in the Munich Central Collecting Point records, represents her practice at the very beginning of her career before the pastel medium became her primary mode and before her reputation had spread beyond Venice. The title 'Damenbildnis, Brustbild' (Lady's Portrait, Bust-Length) describes a common format for female portraiture of the period — the three-quarter bust view that allowed an efficient and economical description of a sitter. The Munich Central Collecting Point was the Allied repository established after World War II for artworks seized or displaced during the Nazi period, and many works passing through it were eventually returned to their pre-war owners or institutions. This canvas's presence in that record raises questions about its wartime movement and subsequent fate that remain difficult to resolve without fuller documentation.

An early work from around 1700 shows Carriera before she developed her distinctive pastel style, working in the oil-on-canvas medium standard for portrait painting of the period. The technique is more conventional than her later work, reflecting a training in Venetian portraiture before she discovered the expressive possibilities of pastel.