Sofonisba Anguissola (also spelled Anguisciola) (c. 1532 – 16 November 1625) was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cremona. She received a well-rounded education that included the fine arts and her apprenticeship with local painters set a precedent for women to be accepted as students of art. Anguissola traveled to Rome, where she was introduced to Michelangelo who immediately recognized her talent, and Milan, where she painted the Duke of Alba. The queen of Philip II of Spain, Elizabeth of Valois, was a keen amateur painter, and Anguissola was recruited to go to Madrid as her tutor, with the rank of lady-in-waiting. She later became an official court painter to the king, and adapted her style to the more formal requirements of official portraits for the Spanish court. After the queen's death, Philip helped arrange an aristocratic marriage for her and she moved to Palermo, and later Pisa and Genoa, where she continued to practise as a leading portrait painter, apparently with the support of her two husbands, living to the age of ninety-three.
Self-portraits and family members were her most frequent subjects, but, in her later life, she also painted religious themes. Unfortunately, many of her religious paintings have been lost. Anguissola became a wealthy patron of the arts after the weakening of her sight. In 1625, she died at age ninety-three in Palermo. Anguissola's oeuvre had a lasting influence on subsequent generations of artists, and her great success opened the way for larger numbers of women to pursue serious careers as artists. Her paintings can be seen at galleries in Bergamo, Budapest, Madrid (Museo del Prado), Naples, Siena, and at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Art historian Giorgio Vasari wrote about Anguissola that she "has shown greater application and better grace than any other woman of our age in her endeavors at drawing; she has thus succeeded not only in drawing, coloring and painting from nature, and copying excellently from others, but by herself has created rare and very beautiful paintings."
Read more about Sofonisba Anguissola: The Anguissola Family, Experiences As A Female Artist, At The Spanish Court, Personal Life, Late Years, Style, Historical Significance