ANGUISSOLA, Sofonisba
(b. ca. 1530, Cremona, d. 1625, Palermo)

Old Woman Studying the Alphabet with a Laughing Girl

1550s
Black chalk heightened with white, on paper mounted on canvas, 301 x 345 mm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Sofonisba Anguissola was among the first artists to produce composition drawings of genre subjects, an unusual category in sixteenth-century Italian draftsmanship. This sheet is a celebrated surviving example of that activity. The highly finished, meticulous technique indicates that it was created as presentation drawing rather than as preparatory study for painting.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.