Self-Portrait

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The Italian Renaissance artist Sofonisba Anguissola was considered the most important woman painter of her time. Born into a relatively poor noble family, she produced more self-portraits than any other artist in the period between Dürer and Rembrandt. She was praised by Michelangelo, painted by van Dyck, and copied by Rubens. This painting is among the earliest female self-portraits in history. Anguissola appears modestly dressed, without fine jewelry or other fashionable accoutrements, holding a book that contains the inscription Sophonisba Anguissola Virgo Se Ipsam Fecit 1554 (Sofonisba Anguissola Virgin made this herself 1554).

We are invited to consider her in a manner that young women had rarely, if ever, been considered: not as a wife, a mother, or an object of beauty or devotion, but as an independent woman of intellect and talent. The painting was considered so out of the ordinary, so exotic, that it hung for many years not in the Habsburg picture gallery, but in their Wunderkammer.

We present this beautiful self-portrait thanks to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

P.S. Do you like Sofonisba's paintings? Then you will love the ones of Giovanna Garzoni! See them here.  <3