18C Reading Indoors or How to flirt with a book

At first, of course, there is the innocent, virtuous young girl...

Pietro Antonio Rotari (Italian artist, 1707-1762) The Virtuous Girl

Italian painter Pietro Antonio Rotari (1707-1762), was a highly successful, itinerant artist who traveled painting portraits of wealthy patrons across Europe. As a young man he studied under Antonio Balestra in Rome & Francesco Trevisani in Naples. Thereafter he returned to Verona where he set up a studio for a while, before he began to travel.  His work attracted royal & aristocratic patrons in Dresden, Vienna, Munich, & Saint Petersburg.  In order to earn a living between commissioned portraits, he created many genre portraits, often images of pretty young girls casting coquettish glances. He died in St Petersburg, where he had traveled to paint for the Russian court.

Pietro Antonio Rotari (Italian artist, 1707-1762) Young Woman with a Book 1762

Pietro Antonio Rotari (Italian artist, 1707-1762) Girl with a Book

Pietro Antonio Rotari (Italian artist, 1707-1762) Young Lady with a Book

Pietro Antonio Rotari (Italian artist, 1707-1762) Self Portrait