Anguissola, Sofonisba

(1528-1625)

   Sofonisba Anguissola was the first woman artist to attain international fame. As a woman, she was at a disadvantage since the painting of large altarpieces and frescoes was considered a male occupation and drawing from the nude was limited to male artists. Sofonisba was able to circumvent these difficulties by specializing in portraiture. Her father, a Cremonese nobleman who could not afford to raise all of his seven children, sent her and one of her sisters to study painting in the studio of the Cremonese Mannerist Bernardo Campi so they could earn their keep. Sofonisba is credited with introducing a new group portrait type, one where the figures are not simply posing, but engaged in some sort of activity. An example of this is the Portrait of the Artist's Three Sisters and Their Governess (1555; Poznan, Narodowe Museum), where her siblings play a game of chess. In the work, the younger girl who observes the game laughs as she watches her sister make her final winning move, a detail that reveals Sofonisba's ability to capture the psychology of the sitters she knew so intimately. Sofonisba's skill in rendering her sitters' physical as well as inner individuality is also seen in her Portrait of the Artist's Sisters and Brother (c. 1555; Wilshire, Methuen Collection), where the naïve expression of her loved ones is captured effectively. In her Self-Portrait at the Spinet with a Chaperone (1561; Northampton, Earl Spencer Collection), Sofonisba presents herself as a member of a cultured nobility and, in so doing, she places her career as artist in the realm of the liberal arts, not manual labor. Her drawing of a Boy Bitten by a Crayfish (c. 1555; Naples, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte) provided the prototype for Caravaggio's Boy Bitten by a Lizard (1595-1596; London, National Gallery). In 1559, Sofonisba was called to Spain to serve as court painter and lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth of Valois. Most of the works she created during her stay there are either undocumented or were destroyed in a fire at court in the seventeenth-century. Sofonisba died at the age of 97, the second oldest Italian artist on record.