Through self-portraiture, Anguissola found the freedom to explore issues of identity and gender, using her intelligence to make subtle transgressions.Ĭlara Peeters, Still Life with Flowers and Gilt Cups, 1612.

She knew the risks of overstepping the mark and took the decision to specialize in the lowly genre of portraiture, attracting private commissions. Many of her male contemporaries had received many more years of training than she had, and her status as a woman prevented her from competing for public commissions for historical or religious paintings. Anguissola’s artistic talents soon emerged, prompting her father’s radical decision to allow her to train with local master painters for three years.Īnguissola was aware of the disadvantages she faced as a woman. Anguissola had five sisters and one brother, and Amilcare ensured that each of his children received an excellent education. But the picture’s small size, along with her wry smile, suggest that she did so in the spirit of Castiglione, with just the right amount of wit, brevity and nonchalance.Anguissola was born in Cremona, northern Italy, the daughter of Amilcare Anguissola, a nobleman of modest wealth. Either way, Anguissola clearly wanted to honor her family’s claims to prestige. The art historian Patrizia Costa has suggested that the monogram on the shield in this self-portrait may contain, in coded form, this family motto - or it may simply signify Anguissola’s father, Amilcare. This led to his nickname, “Anguissola,” which the emperor eventually bestowed as a surname on his descendants. Sourdi’s family shield carried the sign of the asp, a venomous snake, which in Latin is “anguis.” So after victorious battles, his supporters were said to have cheered “Anguis sola fecit victoriam!,” meaning “The snake alone delivered victory!” He helped to liberate Constantinople from the Saracens in the early 8th century using “Greek fire,” a recently developed weapon that sent flames across water. One of Anguissola’s ancestors, according to family tradition, was the Byzantine warlord Galvano Sourdi. (The work was painted a quarter-century after Parmigianino’s celebrated “ Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” which it loosely resembles.) Modestly dressed in a manner conforming to Castiglione’s advice, she smiles wryly, as if inviting us to interpret a puzzle. The mirror Anguissola used appears to have distorted her eyes, one of which seems unnaturally magnified. The Latin inscription around the medallion’s border says, “The maiden Sofonisba Anguissola, depicted by her own hand, from a mirror, at Cremona.” In it, Anguissola has allowed herself to be overshadowed by a medallion, which obscures nearly her entire body. This oval-shaped miniature is, by contrast, just over three inches tall. Confusing! Interestingly, her image is larger than the image of Campi. In one self-portrait, for instance, she showed her image on a portrait being painted by her teacher, Bernadino Campi.

This fictional aspect makes self-portraiture intrinsically playful, and Anguissola made much of this. Artists must observe themselves in a mirror, capturing a moment that is necessarily fictional, since the viewer can never see the actual movements of the hand performing the creative act. Self-portraiture is an inherently beguiling genre. It was painted in varnished watercolor on parchment. This tiny self-portrait at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, painted around 1556, is one of at least a dozen self-portraits she made - more than anyone since Albrecht Dürer and the most until Rembrandt. But her depictions of herself and her family before her move to Spain are her most interesting works. She had, in other words, a very successful career. Her brilliance was recognized by Michelangelo and Giorgio Vasari, who mentions her in “The Lives of the Artists.” Anthony van Dyck paid homage to her in a portrait made before her death, at the impressive age of 93. Born into minor, impoverished nobility in Cremona, Italy, Sofonisba Anguissola (c.1532-1625) would end up as a lady-in-waiting to the queen of Spain, Elizabeth of Valois, and a painter in the powerful court of her husband, Phillip II.

Female self portrait painter