Portrait of a noble woman
oil on panel, 105 x 81 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

Literature:
A. Nicotra, Incontri - La Sicilia e l’altrove, in: Rivista trimestrale di cultura, no. 11 April - June 2015, p. 28, ill. (as ‘Sofonisba Anguissola’)

The present work has been attributed to Sofonisba Anguissola (see literature). Anguissola came from an aristocratic family and is one of the most important European women painters of the period. After her training in the workshop of Bernardino Campi, she played a vital role in the artistic life of Italian courts, not least because of her knowledge of literature and music. She entered into contact with famous artists of her time and was even mentioned in Giorgio Vasari’s Vite, partly due to Michelangelo’s admiration for her. She lived at the Spanish court from 1559 onwards, where she was active as a portraitist until 1568. In 1573 she married the Sicilian nobleman Fabrizio Moncada; her second husband was Orazio Lomellini of Genoa. In 1615 she returned to Palermo, where she continued to paint in spite of her deteriorating eyesight. Her fame is also accounted for by the great esteem she was held in by Anthony van Dyck.

The present painting is strongly influenced by the taste of the Counter-Reformation which is underlined by the sitter’s sober costume and her distant, contemplative gaze, and the portrait’s meticulous execution.