Lucia Anguissola

Very little is known about Lucia, the third daughter of Amilcare Anguissola and Bianca Ponzoni, a Cremonese couple from the local nobility who had six daughters. They all received a comprehensive artistic training, likely encouraged by the early vocation of the eldest sister, Sofonisba, a painter who lived a long life who, like her siblings, mostly focused on portraiture following mainly Lombard traditions. Lucia was probably born around 1540, initially training with her older sister. The portraits attributed to her are private works, images of family members, characterized by a group of intimate and domestic scenes, rendered with soft modeling and smooth contours, a limited color palette, and meticulous attention to detail. There are few works signed by this artist; in these signatures, Lucia always references her affiliation with her father, Amilcare, the "pater familiae" who directed his daughters' careers. It is also common to find references to the artist's youth, often noting her status as a teenager, which undoubtedly aimed to enhance the appreciation for her work. Lucia died young, which explains the small number of works attributed to her, although some of her contemporaries, like the Florentine biographer Filippo Baldinucci, valued her above the more famous Sofonisba (L. Ruiz Gómez in: "Realism and Spirituality. Campi, Anguissola, Caravaggio and other Cremonese and Spanish artists in the 16th-17th centuries", 2007, p. 126).