Portrait of Joanna of Austria with a Young Girl

In 1561 Sofonisba Anguissola was living at the Spanish court, one of the very few women anywhere earning her keep as a painter of kings and queens. She had come from Cremona to serve the young queen, Isabel de Valois, as lady-in-waiting and drawing teacher, and portraits like this were part of the job. The sitter, Juana of Austria, was no minor figure — sister of King Philip the Second, she had governed Spain as regent while he was abroad, and she founded a convent in Madrid where she chose to live. Because a court painter rarely signed such work, the picture drifted loose from Anguissola's name. When Isabella Stewart Gardner bought it in Boston three centuries later, she was told it was a Titian.