Rosalba’s fame in Venice was such that she was invited to the courts of France and Austria, where she painted many portraits.  She was honored by election to the Academies of Rome, Bologna, and Paris.

This artist especially excelled in portraits of pretty women, while her portraits of men were well considered.  Among the most important were those of the Emperor Charles, the kings of France and Denmark, and many other distinguished persons, both men and women.

The Grand Duke of Tuscany asked for her own portrait for his gallery.  She represented herself with one of her sisters.  Her face is noble and most expressive, but, like many of her pictures, while the head is spirited and characteristic, the rest of the figure and the accessories are weak.  A second portrait of herself—­in crayons—­is in the Dresden Gallery, and is very attractive.

While in England Rosalba painted many portraits in crayon and pastel, in which art she was not surpassed by any artist of her day.

Her diary of two years in Paris was published in Venice.  It is curious and interesting, as it sets forth the customs of society, and especially those of artists of the period.

Returning to Venice, Rosalba suffered great depression and was haunted by a foreboding of calamity.  She lived very quietly.  In his “Storia della Pittura Veneziana,” Zanetti writes of her at this time:  “Much of interest may be written of this celebrated and highly gifted woman, whose spirit, in the midst of her triumphs and the brightest visions of happiness, was weighed down by the anticipation of a heavy calamity.  On one occasion she painted a portrait of herself, the brow wreathed with leaves which symbolized death.  She explained this as an image of the sadness in which her life would end.”

Alas, this was but too prophetic!  Before she was fifty years old she lost her sight, and gradually the light of reason also, and her darkness was complete.

An Italian writer tells the following story:  “Nature had endowed Rosalba with lofty aspirations and a passionate soul; her heart yearned for the admiration which her lack of personal attraction forbade her receiving.  She fully realized her plainness before the Emperor Charles XI. rudely brought it home to her.  When presented to him by the artist Bertoli, the Emperor exclaimed:  ’She may be clever, Bertoli mio, this painter of thine, but she is remarkably ugly.’  From which it would appear that Charles had not believed his mirror, since his ugliness far exceeded that of Rosalba!  Her dark eyes, fine brow, good expression, and graceful pose of the head, as shown in her portrait, impress one more favorably than would be anticipated from this story.”

Many of Rosalba’s works have been reproduced by engravings; a collection of one hundred and fifty-seven of these are in the Dresden Gallery, together with several of her pictures.

CASSATT, MARY. Born in Pittsburg.  Studied in Pennsylvania schools, and under Soyer and Bellay in Paris.  She has lived and travelled much in Europe, and her pictures, which are of genre subjects, include scenes in France, Italy, Spain, and Holland.