American Art Collaborative

John Singer Sargent painted Rosina during his second visit to Capri, a small island off the west coast of Italy. It is one of a series of sketches and oil paintings featuring the same model, Rosina Ferrara, a seventeen-year-old native of Capri and a model for numerous visiting American and British artists. Her lightweight, pastel clothing, toothy smile, and mussed hair sharply contrast with the straight-faced, silk-clad, and rigidly posed British and American aristocrats commonly featured in Sargent’s portraits. Rosina communicates the natural beauty, freedom, and genuine happiness that Sargent associated not only with Rosina Ferrara, but also with Italy as a whole.