Anguissola, Sofonisba (1527–c. 1623)

Portrait painter from Cremona. Alongside Lavinia Fontana, one of the first female Italian artists, she executed several self-portraits. Her best-known work is a family group portrait of her sisters playing chess (1555, Muzeum Narodowe, Poznań, Poland).

The daughter of a Piedmontese nobleman, she was a pupil of Bernardino Campi. In 1559 she moved to Spain at the invitation of Philip II, becoming lady-in-waiting and drawing teacher to Philip's wife, Elizabeth of Valois. She stayed in Spain for the next 20 years, and painted many members of the court, though most of these portraits were later destroyed in a fire. She returned to Italy in 1580 and later moved to Palermo in Sicily, where she ran a studio.