Of Greek ancestry, Rosina Ferrara was born in Anacapri on the island of Capri in 1861. She is considered a descendant of Barbarossa, a 16th-century pirate.
Beginning in the 1870s, she modeled for European and American artists, including British artist Frank Hyde, who had a studio in the former Santa Teresa monastery.
John Singer Sargent came to Anacapri in the summer of 1878, as had other of his friends who were artists. While there, he met and became a friend of Frank Hyde and worked in his studio.
Taken by Ferrara’s beauty, he made twelve paintings of her over one year, including A Capriote, Head of an Anacapri Girl, and Capri Girl on a Rooftop.
In 1891 in Rome, she married American painter George Randolph Barse of Detroit and moved to the United States shortly after the marriage. They lived in Katonah, Westchester County, New York. In 1934, Ferrara died of pneumonia. Four years after her death, Barse committed suicide at his home in Katonah.
Ferrara was described by various artists as having the look of an Arab or Greek, the type seen in classical art, such as that of Ancient Greece. Greek colonists settled in Capri in ancient times and left their mark in their descendants.
Rosina’s Legacy
When Charles Sprague Pearce showed his cabinet picture of Rosina for the Salon in 1882 he described her as “the tawny-skinned, panther eyed, elf-like Rosina, wildest and lithest of all the savage creatures on the savage isle of Capri.”
“the tawny-skinned, panther eyed, elf-like Rosina, wildest and lithest of all the savage creatures on the savage isle of Capri.”
English artist, Adrian Stokes wrote of Rosina: “It used to be very easy for artists to find models, but now the grown-up girls are rather shy of strangers, and the priests think it is dangerous for them to pose.
For all of that, there are some regular models to be had. Rosina is considered the first on the island, and certainly is a remarkably handsome young woman. She sits perfectly as a model of London or Paris.”
One of the John Singer Sargent paintings, Dans les Oliviers à Capri (Among the Olive Trees, Capri), was shown at the Paris salon in 1879. Another version of the painting, A Capriote, held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was submitted to the Society of American Artists in New York in March 1879 for its annual exhibition.
The museum describes the painting of Rosina, “Her twisted stance echoes the forms of the branches, expressing a kinship between them of wild and natural beauty.
Sargent equates his model with a classically inspired dryad, making her an elemental part of the wild Capri landscape.” He also made a third painting of the same setting. Source: Wikipedia.
