Sofonisba Anguissola

Sofonisba Anguissola
Self-Portrait, 1556, Lancut Museum, Poland
Born	c. 1532 Cremona, Lombardy, Italy
Died	16 November 1625 (aged 92-93) Palermo, Sicily, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Education	Bernardino Campi, Bernardino Gatti,
Known for	Portrait painting, Drawing
Movement	Late Renaissance
Patron(s)	Philip II of Spain

Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532 – 16 November 1625), also known as Sophonisba Angussola or Anguisciola, was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cremona to a relatively poor noble family. She received a well-rounded education, that included the fine arts, and her apprenticeship with local painters set a precedent for women to be accepted as students of art. As a young woman, Anguissola traveled to Rome where she was introduced to Michelangelo, who immediately recognized her talent, and to Milan, where she painted the Duke of Alba. Elizabeth of Valois, the queen of Philip II of Spain, was a keen amateur painter, and in 1559 Anguissola was recruited to go to Madrid as her tutor, with the rank of lady-in-waiting. She later became an official court painter to the king, and adapted her style to the more formal requirements of official portraits for the Spanish court. After the queen's death, Philip helped arrange an aristocratic marriage for her. She moved to Sicily, and later Pisa and Genoa, where she continued to practice as a leading portrait painter, living to the age of ninety-three.

Her most distinctive and attractive paintings are her portraits of herself and her family, painted before she moved to the Spanish court. In particular her depictions of children were fresh and closely observed. At the Spanish court she painted formal state portraits in the prevailing official style. In later life, she also painted religious themes, although many of her religious paintings have been lost. In 1625, she died at age ninety-three in Palermo. Anguissola's example, as much as her oeuvre, had a lasting influence on subsequent generations of artists, and her great success opened the way for larger numbers of women to pursue serious careers as artists. Her paintings can be seen at galleries in Boston, MA (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum), Bergamo, Brescia, Budapest, Madrid (Museo del Prado), Naples, Siena, and at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.