ROSINA FERRARA

Rosina Ferrara (1861–1934) was an Italian girl from the island of Capri, who became the favorite muse of American expatriate artist John Singer Sargent.

She was born in Anacapri, Capri, in 1861. Visitors to her native island, some of whom were famous artists, were captivated by her exotic beauty. She posed for a variety of 19th-century artists, including Frank Hyde, Charles Sprague Pearce, and George Randolph Barse (whom she later married), and is immortalized in paintings and sketches by them and other artists, which now hang in museums, art galleries, and private collections.                  Ferrara was described by various artists as an "Arab/Greek type," 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.