THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
The six wonderful Sisters.--Sofonisba Anguisciola.--Her
early Sketches.--Painting of three Sisters.--Her Success in
Milan.--Invitation to the Court of Madrid.--Pomp of her Journey and
Reception.--The Diamond.--Paints the Royal Family and the Flower
of the Nobility.--Her Present to Pope Pius.--His Letter.--Her
Style.--Lucia’s Picture.--Sofonisba Governess to the Infanta.
Marriage to the Lord of Sicily.--His Death at Palermo.--The Widow’s
Voyage.--The gallant Captain.--Second Love and Marriage.--Her
Residence at Genoa.--Royal Visitors.--Loss of Sight.--Vandyck
her Guest.--Her Influence on Art in Genoa.--Her Portrait and
Works.--Sofonisba Gentilesca.--Her Miniatures of the Spanish
Royal Family.--Caterina Cantoni.--Ludovica Pellegrini.--Angela
Criscuolo.--Cecilia Brusasorci.--Caterina dei Pazzi.--Her Style
shows the Infusion of a new Element of religious Enthusiasm
into Art.--Tradition of her painting with eyes closed.--Her
Canonization.--Women in France at this period.--Isabella
Quatrepomme.--Women in Spain.--A female Doctor of Theology.--Change
wrought by Protestantism in the Condition of Woman.--Its Influence
on Art.--An English Paintress.--Lavinia Benic.--Catherine Schwartz
in Germany.--Eva von Iberg in Switzerland.--Women Painters in the
Netherlands.--Female Talent in Antwerp.--Albert Durer’s Mention
of Susannah Gerard.--Catherine Hämsen.--Anna Seghers.--Clara de
Keyzer.--Liewina Bennings’ and Susannah Hurembout’s Visits to
England.--The Engraver Barbara.--The Dutch Engraver.--Constantia, the
Flower Painter.
We come now to the six wonderful sisters Anguisciola: Helena,
Sofonisba, Minerva, Europa, Lucia, and Anna Maria, all gifted in music
and painting. Vasari describes his visit “to the house of Amilcare
Anguisciola, the happy father of an honorable and distinguished family;
the very home of painting, as well as of all other accomplishments.”
In Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, we read:
“Le Donne son venute in eccellenza
Di ciascun’ arte, ov’ hanno posto cura.”
The best known of these amiable and distinguished sisters was the
second; though Lucia, who died young, acquired celebrity, and produced
beautiful and valuable works.
SOFONISBA ANGUISCIOLA
was born in Cremona, some time between 1530 and 1540, being descended
from a family of high rank. At ten years of age she knew how to draw,
and she soon became the best pupil of Bernadino Campi, an excellent
Cremonese painter. One of her early sketches, representing a boy with
his hand caught in a lobster’s claw, and a little girl laughing at his
plight, was in the possession of Vasari, and esteemed by him worthy
of a place in a volume which he had filled with drawings by the most
famous masters of that great age. Portraits became her favorite study.
Vasari commends a picture he saw at her father’s, representing three
of the sisters and an ancient housekeeper, chess-playing, as a work
“painted with so much skill and care that the figures wanted only
voice to be alive.” He also praises a portrait of herself, which she
presented to Pope Julius III.
Sofonisba instructed her four younger sisters in painting. While yet in
her girlhood she attracted the notice of princes. She accompanied her
father to Milan, at that time subject to Spanish rule. There she was
received at court with welcome, and painted the portrait of the Duke of
Sessa, the viceroy, who rewarded her with four pieces of brocade, and
other rich gifts. By 1559 her name had become famous throughout Italy.
The haughty monarch of Spain, Philip II., who aspired to the title
of patron of the fine arts, heard the echo of her renown, and sent
instructions to the Duke of Alba, then at Rome, to invite her to the
Court of Madrid. The invitation was accepted. Sofonisba was conducted
to the Spanish court with regal pomp, having a train of two patrician
ladies as maids of honor, two chamberlains, and six livery servants.
Philip and his queen came out to meet her, and she was sumptuously
entertained in the palace. After a time given to repose, she painted
the king’s portrait, which so pleased him that he rewarded her with a
diamond worth fifteen hundred crowns, and a pension of two hundred.
Her next sitters were the young queen, Elizabeth of Valois--known as
Isabel of the Peace--then in the bloom of her bridal loveliness; and
the unhappy boy Don Carlos, who was taken dressed in a lynx-skin and
other costly raiment. One after another she painted the flower of the
Spanish nobility. Meanwhile she received high honors and profitable
appointments from her royal patrons.
Her extended fame induced Pope Pius IV. to ask her for a portrait of
the queen. She executed the commission with alacrity; and, having
bestowed her best care on a second portrait of her majesty, she
dispatched it to Rome, with a letter, to be presented to His Holiness.
“If it were possible,” she says, “to represent to your Holiness the
beauty of this queen’s soul, you could behold nothing more wonderful.”
The Pope responded with precious stones and relics set in gems; gifts
worthy of the great abilities of the artist. His letter may interest
the reader:
“We have received the portrait of the most illustrious Queen of Spain,
our dear daughter, which you have sent us, and which has been most
acceptable, as well on account of the person represented, whom we love
paternally for her piety and the many pure qualities of her mind, to
say nothing of other considerations, as because the work has by your
hand been very well and diligently accomplished.
“We thank you for it, assuring you that we shall hold it among our
most valued possessions, commended through your skill, which, albeit
very wonderful, is nevertheless, as we hear, the very least among the
many gifts with which you are endowed.
“And with this conclusion, we send you again our benediction. May our
Lord have you in His keeping!
“Dat. Romæ: die 15 Ottobris, 1561.”
Sofonisba’s paintings were noted for boldness and freedom; and in
some pieces her figures almost seemed to breathe. Some are comic; and
this branch of art, in painting as in literature, demands boldness of
conception, spontaneity of movement, and delicacy of touch. One of
these works represents a wrinkled old woman learning the alphabet, and
a little child making fun of her behind her back.
During her residence in Spain Sofonisba received from Cremona the
portrait of her mother, Bianca, painted by her sister Europa. It was
highly praised by Castilian critics, and the sister prized it as a
faithful likeness of a beloved one whom she might never again behold.
About this time Lucia may have sent her admirable portrait of Pietro
Maria, a Cremonese physician--a grave and elderly personage in a
furred robe--which now adorns the queen’s gallery in Madrid, the sole
specimen of the powers of the gifted sisters.
Sofonisba had for some time been lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Spain:
she was now appointed by Philip, with other ladies, to undertake the
education of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia. This proves her to
have been in Spain after 1566, the year in which that princess was
born. Her royal patrons wished her to marry a Spanish nobleman and
take up her permanent abode near their court; but her hand was already
pledged to the feudal lord of Sicily, Don Fabrizio de Monçada, and he
bore her away to his island home. The king and queen gave her a dowry
of twelve thousand crowns and a pension of one thousand; which she had
power to bequeath to her son; besides rich presents in tapestry and
jewels, and a dress loaded with pearls.
The newly-wedded pair went to Palermo, where after a few years the
husband died. Sofonisba was immediately invited back to the court of
Madrid, but expressed a desire to see Cremona and her kindred before
her return to Spain. She embarked on board a Genoese galley, commanded
by a patrician called Orazio Lomellini. He entertained the fair widow
with gallant courtesy during the voyage, and she appears to have been
not inconsolable for the loss of her husband. She loved the Genoese,
it is said, out of sheer gratitude; although her biographer, Soprani,
does not hesitate to say that she made him an offer of her hand, which
he--“quel generoso signor”--very promptly accepted. The Lomellini
family still preserve her portrait, painted by herself after the manner
of Raphael.
We now find her living at Genoa, where she pursued her art with
indefatigable zeal. Her house became the resort of all the polished
and intellectual society of the republic. Nor was she forgotten by
her royal friends of the house of Austria. On hearing of her second
nuptials, their Catholic majesties added four hundred crowns to her
pension. The Empress of Germany paid her a visit on her way to Spain,
and accepted a little picture, one of the most finished and beautiful
of Sofonisba’s works. She also received the honor of a visit from
her former charge, the Infanta, now married or about to be married
to the Archduke Albert, and joint sovereign with him over Flanders.
This princess spent several hours talking with her friend of old times
and family affairs; and sat for her portrait, for which, when it was
finished, she gave Sofonisba a gold chain enriched with jewels. This
pretty memorial of friendship was greatly prized by the artist. Thus
caressed by royalty, and courted in Genoese society, she lived to an
extreme old age. A medallion was struck at Bologna in honor of her; the
most distinguished artists listened reverentially to her opinions, and
poets sang the praises of
“La bella e saggia dipintrice,
La nobil Sofonisba da Cremona.”
In the latter years of her life Sofonisba was deprived of her sight;
but retained her intellectual faculties, her love of art, and her
relish for the society of its professors. The conferences she held in
her own palace were attended to the last by distinguished painters from
every quarter. Vandyck was frequently her guest, and was accustomed to
say he had received more enlightenment from this blind old woman than
from all his studies of the greatest masters. This was no mean praise
from the favorite scholar of Rubens; and who shall say it was not
deserved? By precept and by example she helped to raise art in Genoa
from the decay into which it had fallen in the middle of the sixteenth
century. Her pictures have something of the grace and cheerfulness of
Raphael, in whose style her first master painted, and something of the
relief of the followers of Correggio. “More than any other woman of
her time,” writes Vasari, “with more study and greater grace, she has
labored on every thing connected with drawing; not only has she drawn,
colored, and painted from life, and made excellent copies, but she has
also drawn many beautiful original pictures.”
One of Sofonisba’s works, seen at Cremona in 1824, was a beautiful
picture of the Virgin giving suck to the Divine infant. In portraits
her skill is said to have been little inferior to Titian. Her charming
portrait of herself is no mean gem among the treasures of the
galleries and libraries at Althorp. She has drawn herself in what the
Germans term a “knee-piece;” rather under life-size. The small and
finely-formed head is well set on a graceful neck; the dark hair is
smoothly and simply dressed; the features are Italian and regular; the
complexion is a clear olive; and the eyes are large, black, and liquid.
The dark, close-fitting dress is relieved by white frills at the throat
and wrists, and two white tassels hanging over the breast. Her delicate
and exquisitely painted hands are seen over the chords of a spinet.
On the right, in deep shadow, stands an old woman, wearing a kerchief
twisted turbanwise around her head, and resembling a St. Elizabeth or
a St. Anne in a religious composition of the Caracci. The whole is
painted in the clear, firm manner of the best pencils of Florence.
Sofonisba died in 1620.
Palomino mentions Sofonisba Gentilesca among the foreign painters of
the reign of Philip II.: “a lady illustrious in the art,” who came
from France to Spain in the train of Isabel of the Peace. She painted
miniatures with great skill, and had for sitters their majesties, the
Infant Don Carlos, and many ladies of the court. She died at Madrid in
1587.
Another noble lady, Caterina Cantoni, known as an excellent engraver,
was invited into Spain with Sofonisba, to pursue there the calling she
seems to have practiced with success in Italy. Ludovica Pellegrini was
complimented with the title of the “second Minerva” for her excellence
in this branch of art. She also devoted herself to needle-work, and
embroidered sacred furniture, and the great pallium (vestment),
exhibited to strangers as a curious specimen of art and learning.
Boschini mentions “the unrivaled Dorothea Aromatari” as having produced
with her needle those beauties the finest artists executed with the
pencil. Other women were celebrated embroiderers. Naples boasted of
one who surpassed her contemporaries both in painting and music--Maria
Angela Criscuolo. Cecilia Brusasorci, the daughter of the great fresco
painter, became celebrated for her portraits toward the close of this
century.
Passing over a number of minor names, we may close the review of
this period by a notice of Caterina de’ Pazzi. She was born in 1566,
and retired early to a convent, where she assumed the name of Maria
Maddalena. The energy with which she cultivated art, and the peculiar
character of her works and those of others produced at this time,
show the infusion of a new element of religious enthusiasm into art.
Tradition preserves the story of this nun painting sacred pictures with
her eyes closed. In the cloisters of the Carmelites at Parma, and in
the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, at Rome, works of hers may be
found. Dying in 1607, she was canonized by Clement IX. in 1669; and at
this day a picture in one of the richest churches of Florence bears the
name of the saintly artist, whose body reposes in a magnificent chapel
under the same roof.
No other nation, during the sixteenth century, can compete with Italy
in female artists. In France women enjoyed great influence in public
affairs, and several ladies of the highest rank were distinguished for
their literary productions and accomplishments. Isabella Quatrepomme is
mentioned by Papillon as an excellent engraver on wood. She was born in
Rouen, and flourished about 1521. A frontispiece in an old calendar,
executed in neat style, representing a figure of Janus, is supposed to
be by her, as it is marked with an apple on which there is a figure 4.
In Spain the flowers of art began to bloom at a later period; although
in the liberal studies women were not behindhand. Isabella Losa, of
Cordova, was appointed a doctor of theology, and there were ladies in
Valencia, who, familiar with the works of Italian masters of art, made
it their study to imitate them.
In the north the advance of Protestantism wrought a change in
the condition of women, which had its influence on art. Domestic
employments, and the domestic virtues, became more universally the
delight and study of the fair sex. While the light of religious truth
was penetrating their homes with its softened radiance, the growth of
a deep moral feeling was preparing the way for farther triumphs in
the imitative arts. England, where flourished many poetesses, had one
female painter--Lewina Tirlinks--during the reign of Elizabeth. Germany
boasted of Catherine Schwartz, the wife, probably, of that Christopher
Schwartz whom his contemporaries called the German Raphael; while in
Switzerland Eva von Iberg transferred to canvas the beauties of her
country’s scenery.
In the Netherlands, on the other hand, the number of women painters
at this period was large, and many were the diligent successors of
Margaretta von Eyck in her native place. Her brothers, at the head of
the old Flemish school, showed the combination of traditional types
and ancient habits with the results of the struggles of the human mind
for emancipation in this century. Antwerp seems to have been a rich
soil for the production of female talent. Here, in 1521, Albrecht Durer
became acquainted with the fair painter so honorably mentioned in his
journal. “Master Gerard, illuminist,” he says, “has a daughter eighteen
years of age, named Susannah, who illuminated a little book which I
purchased for a few guilders. It is wonderful that a woman can do so
much!” Among noted miniature painters we hear of Catherine Hämsen, who
went into Spain, and entered the service of the Queen of Hungary on a
good salary; also of Anna Seghers; Anna Smyters, and Margaret de Heere.
Clara de Keyzer, or Clara Skeysers, of Ghent, died unmarried at the age
of eighty. She enjoyed a celebrity that extended to Germany, France,
Italy, and Spain, all which countries were visited by her.
Susannah Hurembout and Liewina Bennings, or Benic, should not be passed
over. The latter, the daughter of “Maestro Simon,” was born in Bruges;
was invited to London by Henry VIII., and was treated with great favor
by both queens Mary and Elizabeth. King Henry gave her in marriage to
an English nobleman. It has been thought she is the same person with
Lewina Tirlinks. Susannah also received an invitation from “bluff King
Harry” to visit his court, and lived in England, where she was treated
with great distinction, for the remainder of her life. Both these
women were miniature painters. Barbara Van den Broeck, the daughter
of Crispin, was born in Antwerp, 1560, and engraved from her father’s
designs. She handled the graver with consummate skill. In some pieces,
she imitated successfully the style of Martin Rota.
In Holland, Magdalen de Passe was known as an engraver in copper, and
Constantia von Utrecht as a flower-painter; one who first acquired
distinction in this delicate and feminine branch of study, and directed
to it the attention of her country-women. In later times the city where
she lived and wrought became the capital of the world in this species
of painting.