Retrato de Giovanni Battista Caselli

Sofonisba Anguissola painted this elderly poet in Cremona in the late 1550s, one of the last things she did before her life changed completely. In 1559 she was called to Madrid to serve as painter and lady-in-waiting to Isabel de Valois, the young French queen of Philip the Second of Spain, an extraordinary post for a woman then. The sitter, Giovanni Battista Caselli, was a poet and medal-maker from her own city. He points to a small image of the Virgin to show where his devotion lay, and the book before him carries his verses. For a long time nobody knew any of this. Someone later painted a dark cloak over his scholar's dress, and the picture passed as a portrait of Saint Peter until conservators at the Prado uncovered the truth.