A Young Lady with a Parrot 1725-1735 Venice. Rosalba Carriera is renowned for the distinction she brought to pastel portraiture in Italy and France during the first half of the eighteenth century. No female artist enjoyed greater success or exerted more influence on the art of her era than Rosalba, as she is known. The artistís work in pastel divides itself into two categories portraits and allegories. A shrewd judge of character, she enhanced but never obscured the actual appearance of the sitters in her portraits. In contrast, her allegorical types are often so generalized that they can seem repetitive, bland, and undistinguished. A Young Lady with a Parrot is an intriguing combination of both genres. The colorful parrot is a witty conceit that subtly transfers the provocative gesture of baring oneís breast from the young woman to a mischievous bird, whose beak pulls back the gauzy fabric that edges the sitterís bodice. With its rich colorism and vaporous effects, A Young Lady with a