A pastel on blue paper of an almost half-length figure of a young girl, facing slightly to the left, her head turned slightly to the right, her right arm extended across her half-covered chest to grasp a bunch of fruit; she wears a loose chemise and blue drapery; tree and sky in the background.

This pastel was almost certainly part of Joseph Smith's collection and came into the Royal Collection in 1762; in the 1770s it was hanging alongside Carriera's pastel of Winter (RCIN 400647) in the King's Bedchamber at Buckingham House. On 26 May 1726 Carriera's diaries record a set of allegories of the Four Seasons to be dispatched to London care of 'Sig. Smith', presumably Joseph Smith's brother John who handled his shipments in England. Carriera made several sets of allegories of the Four Seasons, but a full set was not among the twenty or so pastels owned by Smith. The Summer and Winter were probably made almost twenty years apart. The present pastel has been dated about 1744 due to the similarity of the pose to an allegory of Earth acessioned into the Elector of Saxony's collection at Dresden that year.

Rosalba Carriera was born in Venice. She began her career as a painter of snuffboxes, but rose quickly to fame for her pastel portraits, which became highly desired across Europe. She spent a brief period in Paris in 1720 where she was met with great acclaim, returning to Venice where Smith acted as a friend and agent. He also had the finest collection of her pastels in the city, only five of which passed into the Royal Collection in 1762. The largest group of pastels by Carriera belonged to Frederick Augustus Elector of Saxony, to whom she was introduced by the Venetian collector Francesco Algarotti. Over 100 of her pastels were on display at his residence in Dresden in a 'Rosalba Room'. The artist became blind in later life and died in 1757.