around 1535 -1625 · Cremona, Madrid, Genoa and humanist portrait

Scholarly self-portraits, families in action and court faces make Sofonisba Anguissola a major pioneer of the European Renaissance.

Sofonisba Anguissola was born around 1535 in Cremona into a family of minor nobility and died in Palermo in 1625. Her father Amilcare encouraged the humanist education of his daughters and entrusted Sofonisba to the painters Bernardino Campi then Bernardino Gatti. Deprived of certain training accessible to men, notably the in-depth study of the nude, she transformed portraiture, self-portraits and the family scene into a laboratory of invention. In her numerous self-portraits, she shows herself reading, painting or playing the spruce scene: each activity simultaneously affirms social modesty, culture and artistic identity. The Chess Game presents her sisters in a natural exchange where smiles and looks give the collective portrait a new liveliness. Called to the court of Philip II around 1559, she became lady of Queen Elisabeth of Valois, taught her drawing and painted several members of the royal family. After her marriage, she lived in Sicily then in Genoa, where she continued portraits and religious works. Her style combines Lombard tradition, intimate observation and discipline of court portraiture. Admired by Michelangelo and cited by Vasari, Sofonisba opened up new possibilities for women artists while profoundly renewing the representation of identity. The "Sofonisba Anguissola" selection notably compares The Holy Family with Saint Anne and Saint Jean-Baptiste and Self-portrait. His reading favors figures.

Sofonisba transforms the portrait into proof of life: we no longer just pose, we read, we play, we paint and we think before our eyes.