This miniature is a copy by Rosalba Carriera of her diploma piece entitled L'Innocenza (Innocence) which she submitted in 1705 for her admission to the Accademia di San Luca (Academy of Saint Luke) in Rome, founded in 1577 as an association of artists with the purpose of elevating the work of painters, sculptors and architects, above that of mere craftsmen. According to the Academy minutes, it 'was immediately accepted with loud acclaim, and she judged worthy to be an Academician'.

Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757) pioneered the use of ivory – a difficult, non-absorbent material – as a support for miniatures. Her technique involves the laying in of transparent washes over the ivory on the face and the flesh areas so that the colour of the ivory ground shows through, giving those areas a luminous quality. The shadows are picked out in blues and greens giving a mottled effect. The hair, costume and the wings of the dove are completed in thickly and broadly applied colour. This contrast between the different areas of the surface gives the image a greater visual variety and a vibrancy that could not have been achieved on vellum. Her colour range may reflect the fact that she was also a pastel artist.

The use of a dove as a symbol of innocence or chastity was popular and is often seen in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century portraits. Here Carriera's own features are blended into a generic type evoking childhood innocence. Rosalba trained in Venice and travelled to Paris and Vienna, but it was visitors to Venice on the 'Grand Tour' who provided her main source of business. Her innovative use of ivory as a base for miniatures may have developed from the Italian tradition of ivory snuff box decoration. She never visited England although her influence can be seen in the work of English artists such as Bernard Lens, and George III acquired a number of her pastels for the Royal Collection. She became blind in 1749.

Catalogue entry adapted from Masterpieces in Little: Portrait miniatures from the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen (1992)