Details — Click to read
Mezzotint after Sofonisba Anguissola (circa 1532 Cremona – 1625 Naples)
A very fine, rich and dark impression with margins.
The mezzotint is drawn from Sofonisba’s best known painting Self Portrait at an Easel of circa 1556, in which the artist portrays herself in the act of painting a devotional work of the Virgin and Child (now in Castle Łańcut, Poland). Sofonisba, a late Renaissance painter, was one of the first known female artists, and one of the first to establish an international reputation. Her privileged background was unusual among women artists of the 16th century, most of whom, such as Lavinia Fontana, Galizia, Fede and Barbara Longhi, were daughters of painters. In 1546 both Sofonisba and her sister Elena were sent to board in the household of the artist Bernadino Campi for three years, continuing her training with Bernadino Gatti. Many of Sofonisba’s paintings were self-portraits, of which twelve survive.
Most of Giorgio 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’.
Captain William Baillie was an Irish amateur engraver in mezzotint who reproduced Old Master paintings as well as copying or reworking Old Master prints, particularly those of Rembrandt. He adopted the mezzotint technique as a means of imitating Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro. He is best remembered for his reworking of Rembrandt’s ‘Hundred Guilder’ print.
This particular image of Sofonisba was also reproduced in a print by a similar British artist, also a Rembrandt imitator in his printed works, by the name of Thomas Worlidge (1700 Peterborough – 1766 London), who adopted the facial features of his wife towards the print (Dack 119).
