"I will show your Excellency what a woman can do"

[Giovanna Clairval]

My comp is shutting down (upgrades are lurking in the background).

Just the time to post a painting from a contemporary surrealist, Claude Cordier.

Maybe Acoma will rescue Ben from the browser hijacking.

Oh, and I'll be back (just rebooting the darped thing).

[Giovanna Clairval]

Hey, Ben, the little green diode is on. Were you taken along with your browser?

I very much like Josefa de Ayala (Josefa de Óbidos), Portuguese, but Spanish born baroque painter (already posted two paintings on the previous page).

Well, I'll post another one (ah, look at the facial expression!)

Madalena

[Giovanna Clairval]

Josefa de Ayala, again...



Jose e menino (Joseph and the Child)

[Giovanna Clairval]

Sofonisba Anguissola (1532-1625) Italian mannerist painter


Sofonisba was one of the first women to gain a international reputation as a painter. Born in Cremona (Lombardy), she studied under Campi until he moved away and this established a precedent of encouraging male painters to take on female students. Michelangelo even sent her some drawings, which she copied and sent back to him for criticism. She was a prolific painter: more than 30 signed pictures survived from her years in Cremona, with a total of about 50 works that have been securely attributed to her. Late in her life she was visited by a young painter Anthony van Dyck. A drawing of her appears in his sketchbooks, along with excerpts of the advice she gave him about painting. Nevertheless it is clear that she was an innovative portraitist, whose international stature inspired many young women to become painters.

The lady in the golden dress is Bianca Ponzoni Anguissola (1557), the painter's family? Maybe yes and maybe no (Anguissola is a rather common name in Cremona)

The other is an Autoritratto of the artist (1561).