Sofonisba Anguissola

Traces the life of the Italian artist who was an apprentice to Michelangelo and court painter to King Philip II of Spain, and discusses her major paintings.

Set in the sixteenth-century, The Secret Life of Sofonisba Anguissola tells the story of a woman's passion for painting and adventure. In a world where women painters had little to no acknowledgment, she was singled out by Michelangelo and Vasari who recognized and praised her talent. Gaining the Milanese elite's acclaim, she went on to become court painter to Spanish King Philip II and taught his queen to paint. One can't live such an extraordinary life without having stories to tell, and tell them Sofonisba does to Sir Anthony Van Dyke, who comes to visit her toward the end of her life. During their meeting, she agrees to reveal her secrets but first challenges the younger painter to find the one lie hidden in her tale. In a saga filled with intrigue, jealousy, buried treasure, unrequited love, espionage, and murder, Sofonisba's story is played out against the backdrop of Italy, Spain, and Sicily. Throughout her life, she encounters talented artists, authoritative dukes, mad princes, religious kings, spying queens, vivacious viscounts, and dashing sea captains-even a Barbary pirate. But of all the people who fell in love with Sofonisba, only one captured her heart. The painter may have many secrets but the truth of her life is crystal clear from the beginning. Always a strong, passionate woman with a dream, she was an intelligent artist who knew her self-worth and in the end, as Michelangelo had done for her, Sofonisba passed her brush to a new generation.

Sofonisba Anguissola (ca. 1532–1625), an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cremona to a relatively poor noble family, was one of the first women artists to establish an international reputation during her lifetime. This stunningly illustrated monograph explores the evolution of Anguissola’s art from her youth in Cremona through her service as a lady-in-waiting to the Spanish queen Elisabeth of Valois to her later years as a married woman in Sicily and Genoa. Alongside discussions of Anguissola and her work, author Cecilia Gamberini offers a tantalizing exploration of Renaissance court life, detailing how the circles of influence and power operated. This volume highlights the social, political, and cultural preconditions surrounding Anguissola’s role in the court of King Philip II of Spain and her ascent to becoming an internationally acclaimed painter. Gamberini draws on archival documentation, as well as her own original research, to shine a new light on Anguissola’s life, career, and work in this tribute to a truly groundbreaking artist.

This is the first book which gives a general overview of women as subject-matter in Italian Renaissance painting. It presents a view of the interaction between artist and patron, and also of the function of these paintings in Italian society of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Using letters, poems, and treatises, it examines through the eyes of the contemporary viewer the way women were represented in paintings.

"The remarkable story of the Renaissance's most successful female artist, a talented woman who defied the conventions of her times"--

"Within a span of seven or eight years in the 1550s, the Italian painter Sofonisba Anguissola produced more self-portraits than any known painter before her had in a lifetime. She was the first known artist in history to take her parents and siblings as primary subject matter, and may have painted the first group portrait featuring only women. Cole examines Sofonisba's paintings as expressions of her relationships and networks, looking at why Sofonisba was able to become a great woman artist: at her father, who decided to allow her to be educated as a painter; at her teacher, Bernardino Campi; and at her relationships with her students, sisters, and patrons, who included the Queen of Spain. Cole demonstrates that Sofonisba made teaching and education a central theme of her painting. The book also provides the first complete catalogue of all of Sofonisba's known works"--

Drawing on some sixty works and for the first time, the Museo del Prado will jointly present the most important paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola (ca. 1535-1625) and Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614). The two artists achieved recognition and fame among their contemporaries for and despite their status as female painters. Both were able to break away from the prevailing stereotypes assigned to women in relation to artistic practice and the deep-rooted scepticism regarding women's creative and artistic abilities.The exhibition and accompanying catalogue will present the work of these two women, whose artistic personalities were to some extent obscured over the course of time but who in the last thirty years have once again aroused the interest of specialists and the general public.

1. The book is the first devoted to the topic of women artists across the courts of early modern Europe. 2. The essays consider women artists and their experiences in a variety of European courts, in Italy, Flanders, Spain, and England. 3. The essays included address a variety of forms of artistic production by women in the courts, including large and small-scale paintings, sculpture, prints, and textiles.