Selbstbildnis

This picture is tiny, a painted disc barely the width of a hand, and Sofonisba Anguissola made it of herself around 1558. She was the eldest of six artist sisters from a noble family in Cremona, and she was already known. Michelangelo had seen her drawings and praised them. But her rank closed a door. A serious painter of that century built his name on grand scenes from history and scripture, which meant studying the naked body from life, and a woman of her standing was never allowed in that room. So she turned the brush on the one model always at hand, herself, and painted her own face again and again. She signed this one, plainly claiming it as her work. Within a year or two her name reached Spain, and Philip II summoned her to Madrid to serve his young queen.