sophiamcdougall:

OK how have I not heard of this artist?

A self-portrait by the artist from 1556. She is a pale, dark-haired young woman sombrely dressed in black, at an easel working on a painting of a mythological/religious painting of a mother and child.ALT

Sofonisba Anguissola! Her talent for painting was supported by her aristocratic family, and she was highly trained except for the part where she still wasn’t allowed to see models with their clothes off because Girl, but she was coveted as a portraitist.

A painting of three young girls in rich brocades, watched over by an older woman with grey hair. The elder girls are playing chess. The youngest girl seems to be laughing with surprise or mischief.ALT

Those are her sisters! The eldest has just beaten her younger sister at chess, and the latter looks stunned, while their baby sister thinks it’s hilarious. And the winning girl is looking smugly at us/ the portraitist, i.e her big sister.

And also she painted this woman.

A portrait of a fabulously dressed young woman with a feathered hat, pearls, ringlets and an eyepatch over one eye, holding a basket of flowers.ALT

(Great hat!) Ana de Mendoza, who probably lost an eye FENCING but it was widely agreed it made her no less hot and she supposedly fucked the king.

Imagine what they talked about…?!

But I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty stuck on the part when a dashing younger ship’s captain fell in love with Sofonisba at first sight WHEN SHE WAS FIFTY.

(This was her second husband, she first married at 40 but he died ‘mysteriously).

She kept painting until her 90s, when she was painted by Van Dyck, who wrote he’d learned more from her than all his other teachers!

Van Dyck's portrait of Sofonisba Anguissola aged 92. She wears a black dress with a plain white ruff, and a white veil draped over her hair. Her gaze seems stern but clear and alert.ALT

Meanwhile the ship’s captain, Orazio, proceeded to adore her forever, until she died at 93. And seven years later on what would have been her 100th birthday, he placed the following inscription on her tomb:

“To Sofonisba, my wife, who is recorded among the illustrious women of the world, outstanding in portraying the images of man. Orazio Lomellino, in sorrow for the loss of his great love, in 1632, dedicated this little tribute to such a great woman.”


!!!

(via knitmeapony)

Tags: the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there