Italian Mannerist Painter, 1532-1625 The best known of the sisters, she was trained, with Elena, by Campi and Gatti. Most of Vasari's account of his visit to the Anguissola family is devoted to Sofonisba, about whom he wrote: 'Anguissola has shown greater application and better grace than any other woman of our age in her endeavours at drawing; she has thus succeeded not only in drawing, colouring and painting from nature, and copying excellently from others, but by herself has created rare and very beautiful paintings'. Sofonisba's privileged background was unusual among woman artists of the 16th century, most of whom, like Lavinia Fontana (see FONTANA (ii),(2)), FEDE GALIZIA and Barbara Longhi (see LONGHI (i), (3)), were daughters of painters. Her social class did not, however, enable her to transcend the constraints of her sex. Without the possibility of studying anatomy, or drawing from life, she could not undertake the complex multi-figure compositions required for large-scale religious or history paintings. She turned instead to the models accessible to her, exploring a new type of portraiture with sitters in informal domestic settings. The influence of Campi, whose reputation was based on portraiture, is evident in her early works, such as the Self-portrait (Florence, Uffizi). Her work was allied to the worldly tradition of Cremona, much influenced by the art of Parma and Mantua, in which even religious works were imbued with extreme delicacy and charm. From Gatti she seems to have absorbed elements reminiscent of Correggio, beginning a trend that became marked in Cremonese painting of the late 16th century. This new direction is reflected in Lucia, Minerva and Europa Anguissola Playing Chess (1555; Poznan, N. Mus.) in which portraiture merges into a quasi-genre scene, a characteristic derived from Brescian models.  Related Paintings of ANGUISSOLA Sofonisba :. | Baccanalia (mk08) | Bathers on the Seine | The Cross Beside The Baltic | Lamentation of Christ | St John the Baptist |
Related Artists:
Jacopino del Conte
Italian Painter, ca.1510-1598 was an eminent Italian Mannerist painter, active in both Rome and Florence. A native of Florence, Jacopino del Conte was born the same year as another Florentine master Cecchino del Salviati (whom Conte outlived by 35 years) and, like Salviati and a number of other painters, he initially apprenticed with the influential painter and draftsman Andrea del Sarto. Conte's first frescoes, including Annunciation to Zachariah (1536), Preaching of Saint John the Baptist (1538), and Baptism of Christ (1541) were in the Florentine-supported Oratory of San Giovanni Decollato, located in Rome. The Preaching fresco was based on a drawing by Perin del Vaga. In 1547?C48, in collaboration with Siciolante da Sermoneta, Conte completed the fresco decoration of the chapel of San Remigio in San Luigi dei Francesi. In 1552, he painted another work for the San Giovanni Decollato Oratory, the altarpiece Deposition, whose designs are sometimes attributed to Daniele da Volterra.
Cesare Vecellio
(c. 1530 - c. 1601) was an Italian painter and engraver of the Renaissance, active in Venice. He was the cousin of the painter Titian. Like Titian, he was born at Cadore in the Veneto. He accompanied Titian to Augsburg in 1548, and seems to have worked as his assistant. Many of Cesare's pictures were ascribed, perhaps knowingly, to Titian. In the Milan Pinacoteca there is a small Trinity by Cesare. He died at Venice. The woodcuts for the contemporary fashion book, De gli Habiti Antichi e Moderni di Diversi Parti di Mondo published in Venice in 1590 by Cesare, in large may belong to Christopher Krieger from Nuremberg. Cesare also published a book of prints depicting the jewels of royal crowns, titled Corona delle nobili e virtuose donne (1591). Cesare's brother, Fabrizio di Cadore or Ettore, was little known beyond his native place, for the Council-hall of which he is said to have painted a fine picture. He died in 1580.
Hieronimo Custodis
(also spelled Hieronymus, Heironimos) (died c. 1593) was a Flemish portrait painter active in England in the reign of Elizabeth I. A native of Antwerp, Custodis was one of many Flemish artists of the Tudor court who had fled to England to avoid the persecution of Protestants in the Spanish Netherlands.He is thought to have arrived in England sometime after the fall of Antwerp to the forces of the Duke of Parma in 1585. Three English portraits by Custodis signed and dated 1589 firmly establish him as resident in London by that year. Sir Roy Strong attributes a portrait of Sir Henry Bromley dated 1587 to Custodis, suggesting an earlier arrival, and has verified the recent attribution of a portrait of the young Edward Talbot dated 1586 to Custodis.In 1591, he was living in the parish of St Bodolph-without-Aldgate where "Jacobus the son of Ieronyme Custodis A Paynter" was baptised on 2 March. He is assumed to have died in 1593, as all of his known works are dated between 1589 and 1593, and his widow remarried that year. Custodis's unsigned but dated works are idenitified by "palaeographical peculiarities" in the inscriptions which can be closely matched to those in his signed portraits.