Retrato do Príncipe Alessandro Farnese

Around 1560 Sofonisba Anguissola was one of the very few women anywhere earning a living with a brush. She had just arrived at the Spanish court in Madrid as a lady-in-waiting to the teenage queen, Elizabeth of Valois, and there she painted the courtiers around her. This boy of about 15 is Alessandro Farnese, grandson of the emperor Charles the Fifth, who would grow up to be one of Spain's most feared generals. She catches the stiff dignity a princeling was meant to project and the softer, unsure face of an actual teenager underneath it, down to the fine slashed doublet and the gloved hand. When the National Gallery of Ireland bought the picture in 1864, it was filed under a Spanish court painter's name. Only later did study reveal Anguissola's hand, making it the first work by a woman to enter the collection.