(Verona 1707–1762 St. Petersburg)
A young woman holding a mask and a pomegranate,
oil on canvas, 62.5 x 53 cm, framed

We are grateful to Enrico Lucchese for confirming the attribution.

The young woman appears dressed in a traditional costume with a characteristic hat. She partially hides her face behind a moretta, the traditional Venetian black velvet mask, which was also called the muta because to keep it in place the wearer had to hold a button placed at the height of the mouth between the teeth (see G. Boerio, Dizionario del dialetto veneziano, Venice 1829, p. 362). Fresh flowers are pinned to her bodice, while in her right hand, seemingly offering to the viewer, she holds out a pomegranate, a fruit symbolising fertility, which together with the mask is no doubt intended to play an allusive role.

This work belongs alongside the substantial body of character heads, both real and imaginary, painted by the eighteenth-century master, Pietro Antonio Rotari. In particular his ‘Petites tableaux d’expression’ represent women posed to reveal differing expressions of emotion; these works were admired in Italy and became fashionable throughout the capitals of Europe.

A painting of the same subject is in the Peterhof Palace in St. Petersburg among the 368 Character Heads that decorate the so-called ‘Gallery of Beauties’ commissioned by Catherine II in 1764 (see M. Polazzo, Pietro Rotari pittore veronese del Settecento (1707–1762), Verona 1990, pp. 84, 104). Indeed, having worked in Vienna and Dresden, Pietro Antonio Rotari was called to the court at St. Petersburg by Empress Elizabeth I of Russia in 1756, who appointed him court painter.