Sofonisba Anguissola

Italian painter

• Born: c. 1532
• Birthplace: Cremona, Duchy of Milan (now in Italy)
• Died: November 1, 1625
• Place of death: Palermo, Kingdom of Sicily (now in Italy)

Sofonisba Anguissola was one of the first European women to achieve international recognition as a painter. She was renowned for her innovative portraits, which were characterized by their naturalism, psychological intimacy, and emotional expression, and for her family-oriented genre scenes.

Early Life

Sofonisba Anguissola (soh-foh-NEEZ-bah ahn-GWEES-soh-lah), the eldest of seven children, was born and reared in the northern Italian city of Cremona to Amilcare Anguissola and Bianca Ponzoni. A member of the nobility, Amilcare educated his six daughters and one son according to Baldassare Castiglione’s Il libro del cortegiano (1528; The Book of the Courtier, 1561), an influential treatise that stressed the importance of a Humanist education in areas such as art, music, literature, and Latin for upper-class children of both genders.

Sofonisba Anguissola studied painting in Cremona with Bernardino Campi from around 1546 and with Bernardino Gatti from 1549. Women and girls sometimes studied with their artist-fathers, but apprenticeships such as Anguissola’s were rare.

Despite her educational advantages, Anguissola faced societal constraints that barred her from studying anatomy and undertaking the large-scale, multifigured history and religious paintings that were so popular at the time. Portraiture, however, was an area that was accessible to her as a female painter. Friends and family members served as subjects. She developed a naturalistic style that captured individual personalities. This style is evident in the shy expression and fluid drapery of one of her earliest known works, Portrait of a Nun from 1551, which probably depicts her sister Elena.

Life’s Work

Developing her powers of observation, Anguissola pioneered genre painting in Italy and often introduced an element of humor. This is apparent in A Laughing Girl Teaching an Older Woman to Read from the 1550’s. Believed to depict her sister Lucia, the drawing was so inventive that it was shown to Michelangelo, who was impressed with Anguissola and challenged her to draw a crying boy. She sent him Asdrubale Being Bitten by a Crab (c. 1554), showing a range of emotions, from the distressed boy to the girl who is smiling at his dilemma. Again, the models for the drawing were probably her brother Asdrubale and her sister Minerva.

One of her best-known works is The Chess Game from around 1555. This group portrait depicts sisters Lucia, Europa, and Minerva playing chess. Here portraiture merges with genre painting as the work captures the individuals in a moment from daily life. Anguissola carefully observed details: The girls are shown well groomed and dressed in velvets and brocades; the table is covered with a Holbein rug; and the game is taking place outdoors with a vista of the surrounding countryside. There is an unconventional sense of dynamism: Lucia experiences the moment of victory; Minerva signals her defeat; young Europa grins with mischievous glee; the servant quietly observes from the background.

The painting was praised by Giorgio Vasari, one of Anguissola’s first biographers. It provides an early example of the conversation piece, a type of group portrait with individuals engaging in an everyday collective activity, which was popularized by Dutch painters a century later.

More than a dozen of Anguissola’s self-portraits survive, but, unfortunately, many are not dated. In early examples, she appears serious and unadorned in simple dark dress. Her hair is pulled back and plainly netted. She portrayed herself with the accoutrements of a noblewoman educated in Humanism. In her self-portrait of 1554, she holds an open book. A self-portrait from around 1556 shows her at her easel, working on a painting of the Madonna. In her self-portrait of 1561, she is shown at a spinet with her chaperone. In later portrayals, she appears in more opulent dress, indicating her social position.

Anguissola’s father actively promoted her work, and in 1559, she was invited to the court of Spanish king Philip II. There she became a great favorite of the royal family. She served as a painting instructor and lady-in-waiting to the young queen, Isabel of Valois.

There has been some difficulty in identifying Anguissola’s work from this time period. She seldom signed her compositions. As a noblewoman, she did not accept monetary payment or public commissions, thus limiting documentation of her paintings. Many of her images were copied. Some were destroyed in subsequent fires or damaged to an extent that identification has proved difficult. Some pieces were mistakenly attributed to male artists. Nevertheless, scholarship has documented many of her works from this period.

There is a marked change in style from the family-oriented themes of her Cremona period to the portraits that she executed in her fourteen-year residence in Spain. The influence of official Spanish court art is evident in her work, but her interest in the subject’s personality, fluid contours, greater freedom of pose, and softer treatment of the painted surface contrasts with the severity of traditional royal portraits. Her full-length portrayal of Isabel (c. 1565), an official pose showing the queen holding Philip II’s portrait, still reveals the vitality of her subject. The portrait of Philip II (c. 1565), first painted before the deaths of Isabel and Don Carlos in 1568, shows a more relaxed, youthful king. The severe dark cape was added later.

After the unexpected death of the queen, King Philip began the search for a suitable husband for Anguissola. In 1573, she married Don Fabrizio de Moncada, a Sicilian nobleman. King Philip gave her in marriage and bestowed dowry gifts, including a lifelong pension, which provided her with some financial independence. She and her husband resided in Palermo. Sources indicate that she was involved with painting miniatures, but no works from this time are firmly identified. Don Fabrizio met an untimely death by drowning in 1578, leaving Anguissola with financial entanglements. She dissolved the Palermo household and headed back to Cremona.

On this journey, she met the ship’s captain, Orazio Lomellino of Genoa, whom she married shortly thereafter in 1579. As she entered this marriage over her brother’s objections and without the permission of the king, it is assumed that the contract was based on a strong emotional attachment. A busy hub connecting northern and southern Italy, Genoa was a prime location for the artist. Over the next four decades, Anguissola pursued her painting, established a salon, and was highly respected. Letters suggest that she worked for the duke of Tuscany, Francesco de’ Medici. Her small-scale devotional paintings from this time derived from existing works of other artists such as Luca Cambiaso. Inventories show that she painted portraits of family and friends, but none of these have been firmly identified.

Nevertheless, representations of members of the Spanish court have survived from this mature period, dating from around 1580. The only signed portrait is a replica of her first depiction of Isabel (c. 1590). This work reveals some changes in style from her days at the Spanish court: The features are more delicate and the technique is more fluid. Also from this period are portraits of Infanta Catalina Micaela (c. 1585) and Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia (c. 1599), daughters of Queen Isabel.

Around 1615, Anguissola and her husband moved to Palermo. Anthony van Dyck visited her there in 1624, when he drew a portrait of her in his Italian Sketchbook. He noted that she was in her nineties and that her failing eyesight prevented her from painting. She died in 1625.

Significance

Anguissola was in the vanguard of artists, with a career that spanned seventy years. Because of the constraints put on sixteenth century women, her subjects were limited, and she turned to portraiture.

Her style was natural and insightful, combining miniaturist detail with fluid brushwork. She was internationally recognized in her lifetime, a distinction unusual for female artists. She was honored as an official painter of the Spanish court, was recognized by Michelangelo and Vasari, and was awarded a lifetime pension by the king of Spain. Other artists such as Peter Paul Rubens copied her work.

Her work inspired others to consider painting as an acceptable profession for women. Precluded from achievement in the field of large-scale historical and religious painting, she learned to observe her subjects more keenly, to capture the essence of their personalities, and to give them life.

Bibliography

Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia, and Maria Kusche. Sofonisba Anguissola: A Renaissance Woman. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1995. Catalog that accompanied exhibition by same title. Essays with 24 color plates and extensive descriptions of Anguissola’s most important works.

Martin, Elizabeth, and Vivian Meyer. Female Gazes: Seventy-five Women Artists. Toronto, Canada: Second Story Press, 1997. Essays explore the lives and works of diverse female artists.

Perlingieri, Ilya Sandra. Sofonisba Anguissola: The First Great Woman Artist of the Renaissance. New York: Rizzoli, 1992. Pioneering biography accompanied by more than 120 plates, many reproduced in color.

Slatkin, Wendy. Women Artists in History from Antiquity to the Present. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001. Focuses on women artists and their contributions to visual culture. Incorporates scholarship and detailed analyses of individual works.

Vigué, Jordi. Great Women Masters of Art. New York: Watson-Guptill, 2002. Introductory overview followed by short essays on outstanding women painters in the history of Western art.