The Chess Game

One painting that attests to both warm family ties and the importance of birth and descent is the portrait that Sofonisba Anguissola made in 1555 of three of her sisters, probably Lucia, Europa, and Minerva, and their maidservant, around a chessboard. The game of chess not only emphasizes the intimate mood and harmonious relationship between the sisters, but also their status. Chess was an intellectual pastime befitting an aristocrat, as were the oriental carpet on the table, the sisters’ costly attire, and the maidservant keeping an eye on them all with an amused look on her face.

It is one of the few portraits whose original location is known, for artist & historian Giorgio Vasari saw it in 1566 in the family palazzo in Cremona. Lucia and Minerva were already dead at the time, and Sofonisba herself was working as a lady-in-waiting and painter in Spain. During their lives in that house the group portrait would have been an example of the ideal, harmonious life of an aristocratic family. Afterwards it would undoubtedly have been a cherished memento of absent family members, whether they were far from home or already dead.

For the knowing bystander who read the self-assured signature with the forename and surname of the maker on the chessboard, it was also immediately clear that this was a family with an illustrious history.

P.S. Sofonisba was a real badass! Read more about her life story here :).