(Cremona 1532–1629 Palermo)
Recto: Portrait of a noblewoman, possibly Aloisia de Luna Moncada, bust-length, wearing a black embroidered dress,
Verso: Saint Mary Magdalen,
oil on copper, 23.7 x 18.7 cm, framed

Provenance:
European art market;
where acquired by present owner

We are grateful to Marco Tanzi for endorsing the attribution of the present painting and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

We are also grateful to Alfio Nicotra for independently confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a photograph.

This double-sided work is a recent addition to the oeuvre of the celebrated Cremonese painter Sofonisba Anguissola and can be dated to the 1570s, during the artist’s first stay in Sicily.

The depiction of the noblewoman recto, for which an identification as the artist’s sister-in-law Aloisia de Luna Moncada has been suggested, reflects the influence of Spanish courtly portraiture, especially in the sitter’s black velvet dress with metallic embroidery, jewelled buttons, and a headdress, similar to the one in Alonso Sánchez Coello’s portrait of Doña Juana of Portugal, dated to 1557, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. 3127). Juana’s austerity reflected her very early widowhood and piety. It can only be assumed that the sitter of the present painting had a similar background. In contrast to the Spanish full-length court portraits, the present work does not follow the impersonal, timeless, and interchangeable depiction, but represents a more personalised image.

The Mary Magdalen verso is an example of Sofonisba Anguissola’s limited religious oeuvre. It is stylistically related to the altarpiece of the Madonna dell’Itria in the Church of the Santissima Annunziata in Paternò. The relation between the two compositions is evident in the similarity in facial features of the Madonna and Mary Magdalen both having conch-shaped eyes, pronounced noses and small, thick lips. The left hands of the two protragonists are almost interchangeable. Tanzi has suggested that the depiction of the Magdalen may either refer to the sitter recto or to the original owner of the painting, possibly Giovanni Battista Maddalena, who was the notary of the family of Fabrizio Moncada, Sofonisba’s first husband, whom she married in Sicily.

Sofonisba Anguissola was born into an aristocratic family from Cremona. Her parents educated their six daughters as if they were male offspring and sent her on an apprenticeship as a painter to the workshop of Bernardino Campi. Sofonisba focussed on portraiture, as she was able to do this in her home studio, often using herself and her family as models. Her portraits were praised by contemporaries for their naturalness and originality and her early fame led to her become the drawing teacher and lady-in-waiting of the Spanish Queen Isabella of Valois between 1560–1572. From 1573 she is documented in Sicily, where she first married Fabrizio Moncada of Paternò. After her husband’s early death, she moved to a thriving Genoa where she found patrons comparable to the court in Madrid such as the Lomellini, Doria and Grimaldi families.