In an era when there were few professional female artists the Venetian Rosalba Carriera (1673–1757) pursued a remarkably successful career as a miniaturist and pastel painter. She died wealthy: her estate was valued at 24,556 ducats; by comparison, the feted Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto (1697–1768), left 2,588 ducats. Her work was collected avidly across Europe, her miniatures even more sought after than her pastels – for miniatures she charged 50 zecchini, while pastels cost 20 or 30 zecchini, depending upon whether hands or flowers were included in the portrait. Her cosmopolitan clientèle valued her work for the connotations of connoisseurship that ownership of it implied, as well as for its style and its content.

In a letter dated 29 May 1723 the collector Gerhard Michel Jabach (d. 1753) wrote in eager anticipation to Carriera about the miniature he had commissioned that, when delivered, would be mounted in a snuffbox: ‘She will often be my plaything, talking to me in the sweet language of the eyes that often expresses more than words can say. She will render my snuff finer and my tabatière will become famous and precious, conferring on this bumpkin a reputation for good taste.’3 Perhaps the underlying reason why collectors delighted in these miniatures is revealed by the present work, which is mounted in a tortoiseshell snuffbox with fine piqué decoration. Ostensibly it depicts a young flautist, but she holds the flute in the wrong direction to play. Carriera was a skilled harpsichord player and performed occasionally with other amateur musicians, including Christian Ludwig, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1683 1756), and she was therefore unlikely to make such an error without intent. If the flute ceased to be a musical instrument its role could be repurposed: the contoured and polished head of the flute, the sitter’s expressive eyes and her partially unbuttoned bodice must have been intended to encourage the viewer to think of other pleasures.

While the French painter Claude Boutet had mentioned the use of ivory as a ground for miniatures in L’école de la mignature, Lyon, 1679, its wider use only came to the fore in the early eighteenth century, with Carriera one of its most important champions. Her choice of the material was almost certainly influenced by exposure to the Venetian practice of painting the interiors of piqué-studded ivory boxes. That her painted ivory tablets were subsequently mounted on the inside lids of snuffboxes can in some ways be seen as an extension of the same tradition.

The piqué point decoration is in excellent condition. Pins made from three colours of gold add to the richness of the design that deftly balances delicate scrollwork with blocked forms.

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