Portrait Of A Lady With A Ruff – Circle Of Sofonisba Anguissola (1535 – 1625)

Oil on canvas. Lombardo-Emilian school around 1570, entourage of Sofonisba Anguissola.
Portraited in three quarters, our young princess scrutinizes the viewer, adopting a pose dictated by the aesthetic canons of her time. Probably from the Lombard or Emilian aristocracy, she is dressed in a sumptuous costume with precious fabrics. The simarre (outer dress) of emerald green velvet and the white silk shirt are sewn with gold threads. The high ruff presents the head as if placed on a plate. The hair rises in a racket and the head is crowned by a cap decorated in its center with an egret. Finally, the numerous jewels - gold necklace with several rows, necklace set with rubies and pearls, rich medallion representing the Virgin - are all testimonies to the importance of the rank of our princess. Numerous clues, pictorial and technical, lead us into the world of the woman painter whose talent Vasari and Michelangelo appreciated. The great attention to detail with a strong impasto to create the impression of depth, the coloring of the face, and the outline of the left hand in a “square U” take us back to Sofonisba Anguissola. But the density of the skin tones and the outline of a fleshy hand take us away from it somewhat. When Giorgio Vasari visited the Anguissola family in 1566, Sofonisba was absent since she had been in the service of the Spanish court since 1559, which did not prevent the author of the famous “Vite” from relating that the “six sisters accomplish wonders” (in terms of drawing and painting obviously). We are probably in the presence of the work of his most talented sister, Lucia who imitated her elder while having her own character, notably painting fleshier hands. Lucia produced excellent portraits: Doctor Pietro Maria Prado Museum Madrid, Self-portrait Galleria Borghese Rome.

Our portrait is presented in a powerful period Florentine frame called “Medici” in carved, gilded and brown rechampi wood.
Dimensions: 64.5 x 50.5 cm – 98 x 84 cm with the frame

Biography:
Sofonisba Anguissola (Cremona c. 1535 - Palermo 1625) was born into a noble family in the small Lombard town under the supervision of the Spanish crown . She owes her first name to the tradition established by her great-grandfather which places the family under the sign of the ancient history of Carthage. Thus his grandfather bore the first name of Annibale and named Sofonisba's father Amilcare. The latter, far ahead of his time, gave his six daughters the same education as that usually reserved for the sons of the aristocracy and encouraged them to develop their artistic talents. Placed with her younger sister Elena in the studio of Bernardino Campi from 1549, Sofonisba developed an increased sense of portraiture. In 1554, she left for Rome with a small suite (perhaps accompanied by one of her sisters) and Michelangelo, whom she probably met, praised the qualities of her drawings. Under the influence of Il Divino, his understanding of anatomy and his sensitivity were refined. In 1557, she went to Plaisance, Mantua or Milan to fulfill commissions for portraits. In Parma, she met Giulio Clovio who introduced her to the art of miniatures. In 1559, on the recommendations of the Duke of Alba, she was appointed lady-in-waiting to the new Queen of Spain, Isabella of Valois, to whom she taught drawing. Then began a long stay in Spain during which she painted a large number of portraits of members of the royal family as well as the nobility. Five years after the death of her protector, in 1573, she married an Italian nobleman whom she joined on his lands in Sicily, but he died during a sea voyage in 1578. The following year, she married for a second time. with a Genoese merchant. Having settled permanently with her husband in Palermo around 1615, she stopped painting, her visual faculties abandoning her. Anton van Dyck, called to Palermo to paint the viceroy Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, comes to pay homage to him. This shows the fascination that this woman painter aroused during her lifetime.

Bibliography:
- BALDINUCCI Filippo, Notizie de' professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, Studio per Edizione Scelte, 1681-1728 Modern edition 1974
- DE LOGU Giuseppe, Il ritratto nella pittura italiana, Istituto Italiano d'Arti Grafiche 1975
- PERLINGIERI Ilya Sandra, Sofonisba Anguissola , female Renaissance painter, Liana Levi 1992
- Catalog of the exhibition presented at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art then Detroit Institute of Arts, By her hand, Artemisia Gentileschi and women artists in Italy 1500 – 1800, Yale UK 2022
- Collective, catalog of the exhibition at the Palazzo Reale in Milan, The Ladies of art, Stories of women in the 16th and 17th centuries, Skira 2022
- Catalog of the exhibition presented at the Prado Museum, A Tale of two women painters, Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, Thames Hudson 2020