(Verona 1707–1762 St. Petersburg)
Young Woman in a Red Fur-Trimmed Coat,
oil on canvas, 45 x 35 cm, framed

Provenance:
Othon Kaufmann and François Schlageter Collection, Strasbourg (according to a collector’s mark on reverse);
Private European collection (purchased by the present owner in 1984)

The present portrait is one of the paintings of young women which gained Rotari his reputation throughout Europe. The artist executed many such studies of heads for the courts in Dresden, Vienna and St. Petersburg, equally interesting in their sentiment and painterly brilliance. In these portraits the artist portrays human passion with subtle colouring and sensitive observation.

Pietro Rotari came from a noble family and initially began to study painting only as a pastime. He was taught by Antonio Balestra in Verona, and later travelled to Venice and Rome where he became a pupil of Francesco Trevisani. From 1731 to 1734 he worked in the studio of Francesco Solimena in Naples. After returning to Verona he set up his own studio and earned himself a reputation as a painter of altarpieces, rich in figures and inspired by the influence of Roman and Neapolitan painters of the 17th century.

He travelled to Vienna around 1751, and here he was able to study the works of Jean-Etiénne Liotard whose clear, painterly smoothness impressed him and had a lasting influence on his subsequent works. After a stay in Dresden his reputation lead him to Russia, where his portraits enjoyed great success and he was appointed court painter to Czarina Elizabeth l. Rotari received a commission to paint portraits of young women for the gallery of beauties which were intended to represent the diversity of the Russian peoples. In the course of this commission Rotari produced not only 360 pictures of Russian middle-class ladies for Elizabeth, but also an additional 50 which she presented to the Russian Academy of Art. Elizabeth’s pictures were earmarked for the Peterhof Palace, and today around 40 of the works are to be found in the palace in Archangel. The charm of these portraits often approaches that of Greuse or Chardin.

Round collector’s marks (see fig.1) on the reverse of the stretcher indicates the provenance of the present painting as the collection of Othon Kaufmann and François Schlageter, a renowned private collection which was given to the Louvre, Paris in 1983. The present work was possibly sold prior to this date. The Kaufmann and Schlageter collection included important works of the highest quality, bought on the advice of Hermann Voss and Pierre Rosenberg. Resident in Strasburg, the collectors were self-taught and had already begun to acquire the most eclectic range of objets d’art before the First World War. They owned many Italian paintings.