Young Russian Woman

This c. 1756-62 portrait of a Young Russian Woman by Pietro Antonio Rotari hangs in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore Maryland.

"This painting of it young woman with her head slightly tilted back, parted lips, low cut dress, and gaze that meets that of the beholder is a study in the coy sensuality so often encountered in French Rococo art of the period. The painting lacks the formality of the commissioned portraits displayed here and is rather a study of female seductiveness meant for a male patron. Rotari worked in his native Verona before moving to Vienna and Dresden and finally became court painter to Empress Elizabeth of Russia in 1756. This work is from his time in St. Petersburg." -- The Walters Art Gallery