Damenbildnis mit rotem Mantel mit Schwanenbesatz (Der Winter, Selbstbildnis)

This work, titled 'Damenbildnis mit rotem Mantel mit Schwanenbesatz (Der Winter, Selbstbildnis)' (Lady's Portrait with Red Cloak with Swan Trim — Winter, Self-portrait), combines personal and allegorical registers: the work is both a self-portrait and an allegorical personification of Winter, identified by the warm fur-trimmed cloak suited to the cold season. The four-seasons personification was a common decorative scheme, and framing a self-portrait within it gave the artist a more elevated purpose than simple self-documentation. The swan trim has aristocratic and mythological associations — swans were sacred to Apollo. Dated c. 1700 and recorded in the Führermuseum collection, this early work shows Carriera at about twenty-seven, before her celebrity but already engaged with the decorative and allegorical possibilities of her art.

The red cloak with swan-feather trim is the key technical challenge and visual centrepiece: Carriera must render the warm crimson of the fabric, the white fluffiness of the swan trim, and the face above with each material having its distinct texture and colour temperature. The allegorical apparatus is worn as costume, integrated into what is fundamentally an intimate self-study.