Pintura siglo XVI - History Lab

Miniature self-portrait

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:31:28 +0000

Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1535-1625) was born in Cremona into a high-born family. She was educated according to the values associated with virtuous women in the 16th century and her training was based on a solid knowledge of literature, music, dance, drawing and painting. She excelled in the latter field and was admired by Michelangelo, the leading figure in Italian art. After visiting the family, Giorgio Vasari also confirmed the young woman’s mastery of drawing and painting. In 1559, at the age of fourteen, she arrived in Spain through the Duke of Alba and the Duke of Sessa, governor of Milan. At the court of Philip II she worked as a court lady to Queen Isabella of Valois until her death in 1568, after which she entered the service of the king’s daughters (Isabella Clara Eugenia and Catherine Micaela) and Queen Anne of Austria, the king’s fourth and last wife. He remained with them until 1573, when he left for good to return to his place of origin. This small parchment (now a pendant) depicts one of the artist’s most cultivated facets, the self-portrait. In her hands she holds a medallion with an inscription in Latin that reads: “The maiden Sofonisba Anguissola, represented by her own hand, from a mirror, in Cremona”.

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Autorretrato touching the spinet

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:31:28 +0000

Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614) was born in Bologna and was the daughter of the painter Prospero Fontana, who trained her in the family home. She was responsible for running her own workshop and her works were commissioned by Pope Clement VIII. She is noted for her cultivation of genres of painting that were normally beyond the reach of women, such as group portraits, altarpieces, landscapes and, in particular, paintings on mythological themes in which she included nudes, a highly unusual detail. In this small self-portrait, executed on the occasion of her engagement to Giovanni Paolo Zappi, Lavinia wished to demonstrate her wide-ranging culture, solid education and careful manners. The Latin inscription in the upper left corner shows that Fontana painted his portrait in front of a mirror: “ex especulo imaginem oris sui expresit”.

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The Bonaventure

ad_hlab_min — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 16:31:21 +0000

Caravaggio (1571-1610) executed around 1595 a forerunner of genre painting, The Bonaventure. Painted for Alessandro Vittrice and now in the Musée du Louvre (Paris), it depicts two half-length figures in an indeterminate location. There is no indication of where the action is taking place, the scene being illuminated only by a light from the left that falls on the figures: a young man of distinguished appearance wearing a feathered hat and a gypsy woman, recognisable as such by her coppery skin, turban knotted under her chin, black hair and cape draped over one of her shoulders, as well as by the fact that she is engaged in the activity that gives the painting its title. Good fortune was a widespread practice in royal courts during the 16th and 17th centuries and was often complemented by astrology, which had been in vogue along with horoscopes since the late Middle Ages. It was also reinforced by the use of the tarot, a deck of 78 cards depicting various figures, which originated in northern Italy in the first half of the 15th century. In 1781, Antoine Court de Gébelin reasoned that the tarot came from Egypt, which quickly led people to associate card prediction with the Gypsies, as the Egyptian origin of this ethnic group had been a widespread and accepted belief until well into the 18th century. Gébelin’s theory was exposed to various distortions in the following centuries by authors such as Boiteau d’Ambly, Vaillant and Taylor, who still maintained that the Gypsies were the first connoisseurs and therefore disseminators of cartomancy.

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