Portrait of a Canon Regular by Sofonisba Anguissola – credit, Robert Simon Fine Art
A lost work by the most famous female artist of the Renaissance has surfaced at a North Carolina estate.
The story of how Portrait of a Canon Regular was found begins in 1920 when it was photographed in black and white—before vanishing from all knowledge.
104 years later, art historian Michael Cole recorded a lecture on the illustrious portrait painter Sofonisba Anguissola of Cremona, and posted it on YouTube. In Durham, North Carolina, a pair of art collectors just happened to watch the lecture, and it gave them the notion that they might own an Anguissola.
Calling Cole and informing him of the prospective piece, they invited to fly him to Durham for a closer look, and it was there that he confirmed it to be Portrait of a Canon Regular, a painting Anguissola composed when she was 20 years old, depicting a priest giving a sermon from the Gospel according to St. John. A ghostly eagle bearing a halo—St. John’s avatar, is seen over the figure’s right shoulder.
If the reader has never heard of Sofonisba Anguissola, allow for a quick interjection by sig. Giorgio Vasari, a 16th-century Renaissance artist and biographer.
“[Anguissola] worked with deeper study and greater grace than any woman of our times at problems of design. For not only has she learned to draw, paint and copy from nature, and reproduce most skillfully works by other artists, but she has on her own painted some most rare and beautiful paintings.”
A noble-born lady of Cremona, in northern Italy, Anguissola would be encouraged to take painting and drawing lessons as a child by her father. After a short debut painting particularly life-like portraits in Italy, she received a commission to become a lady-in-waiting for the Queen of Spain, Elisabeth.
At the Spanish court she would produce dozens of portraits of the royal family while teaching the royal children the arts. An iconic depiction of Philip II, hung in the Prado Museum, was made under her brush.
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She eventually married the brother of the Viceroy of Sicily, Orazio Lomellino, who loved her dearly all their lives. Moving to that very island, she lived to an incredible age of 93, passing away and leaving Orazio a widower. He ordered this inscription carved on her tomb.
To Sofonisba, my wife, who is recorded among the illustrious women of the world, outstanding in portraying the images of man. Orazio Lomellino, in sorrow for the loss of his great love, in 1632, dedicated this little tribute to such a great woman.
Portrait of a Canon Regular, painted by the maestra in 1552, was exhibited at the Winter Show, an art fair held at the Park Avenue Armory on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where it was for sale for half a million dollars.
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Anguissola was particularly limited in her creativity after taking the role in the Spanish court. Each portrait had to be the same style, and in this way the works she completed before moving to Madrid are especially valued.
Not only is Portrait of a Canon Regular within that criteria, but it’s one of only 20 Anguissola canvases that bears her signature.
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