Sofonisba Anguissola

(Cremona, 1532 - Palermo, 1625)

This Portrait of a lady is a late work by Sofonisba Anguissola which Marco Tanzi dates to the artist’s sojourn in Genoa, around 1615. He compares the present sitter to the Portrait of a woman by Sofonisba in the Galleria Borghese, Rome (inv. no. 118). This portrait shows an elegant woman wearing pearls and decoration in her hair. Sofonisba’s typical painterly elements are apparent in the sitter’s large eyes, the fine eyebrows and skin tone.

Sofonisba Anguissola painted portraits throughout her career, including self-portraits at an advanced age. One, dated to 1610, when the artist was 78, shows the artist seated on a chair, holding a book and a piece of paper, in a modest black dress. Sofonisba’s international renown grew throughout her lifetime and later in her life, Anthony van Dyck visited her in Sicily and painted her portrait. On her death at age 93, in 1625, her second husband, Orazio Lomellino, had her tomb inscribed, ‘To Sofonisba, my wife, who is recorded among the illustrious women of the world, outstanding in portraying the images of man’.

Born into a noble family from Cremona, Sofonisba experimented with new styles of portraiture, setting her sitters, often herself and her family, informally, which was innovative. Her paintings therefore allow the viewer a glimpse of aristocratic daily life at the time. She became known for her work and received commissions from across Italy.

Sofonisba spent twelve years at the Spanish court between 1560–1572 as a lady-in-waiting and drawing teacher to Queen Isabella of Valois. From 1573 she is documented in Sicily, where she first married Fabrizio Moncada di Paternò, who died young. Sofonisba moved to a thriving Genoa where, thanks to the development of the the Strada Nuova which was lined with important palaces, she found patrons comparable to the court in Madrid such as the Lomellini, Doria and Grimaldi family.