Portrait of Marquess Massimiliano Stampa

In 1557 a nine-year-old boy inherited a marquisate. His father had just died, and young Massimiliano Stampa became the third marquess of Soncino, a small town in Lombardy. The family marked the moment with this full-length portrait, and it went to Sofonisba Anguissola, then a woman in her twenties at the start of her career. It was her first important commission. She dresses the boy in the severe black of the Italian courts and sets him in a grown man's pose, one hand resting on a stone ledge. Yet she cannot quite make him solemn. His expression stays hesitant, a child's, and at his feet a small pet dog has fallen asleep, unimpressed by the weight of the new title above it.