Africa
Rosalba Carriera, 1720
Africa is a pastel on paper by Rosalba Carriera, dated to around 1720, belonging to a series of four continents the artist made around those years. A young woman with dark skin appears in three-quarter view, her head tilted and her gaze turned to one side. She wears a silk turban rich with feathers and jewels, pearl teardrop earrings, and several necklaces: one of pearls and another half pearls, half red coral, fastened by a coral clasp carved as a scorpion. In her hand she holds vipers, a detail that alludes to venom and works as a warning to anyone wishing to penetrate a continent then little known to Europeans. The riches shown come from the seas surrounding it, while the interior remained beyond their reach. Carriera applies the allegorical tradition to an intimate format and concentrates attention on the face, whose expression is ambiguous and almost unsettling. The dating and the history of the series are uncertain, which limits what can be stated confidently about its origin.
- Painter
- Rosalba Carriera
- Date
- 1720
- Dimensions
- 34 × 28 cm
- Museum
- Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden
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