Self-portrait

Elisabetta Sirani drew this self-portrait in chalk around 1660, when she was about 22 and already running the busy Bologna workshop she had taken over from her father, whose gout had ended his own painting. She was famous for her speed. Visitors came to watch her finish a picture in a single sitting, partly to satisfy themselves that the work was really hers. A chalk sheet like this belongs to the quick, private side of her art, made in the studio rather than for a patron. She would die just five years later, not yet 27.