We pass on to a little bevy of emigrants

We pass on to a little bevy of emigrants, women painters who visited foreign courts where they met with great successes. Sophonisba Anguisciola, born of a noble family in Cremona, was enriched by Philip II. of Spain; Artemesia Gentileschi came to London with her father and found a patron in Charles I.; Maria La Caffa (17th century), a flower painter, came upon her Mæcenas in the Court of Tyrol; it was in German Courts that Isabella del Pozzo (17th century), like Felicita Sartori (18th century),decorative paintings, plucked bay leaves and laurels; and Violanta Beatrice Siries, after making for herself a name in Paris, returned home to Florence and painted many famous persons of the 18th century. Then we have Rosalba Carriera, whose career ended in blindness and loss of reason, and whose whole life is a touching story. As a child she made Point of Venice lace; at the age of fourteen or fifteen she painted snuff boxes with flowers and pretty faces; then miniatures of well-known persons kept her brushes busy; but this minute art tried her eyes so seriously that Rosalba adopted pastels instead,abstract oil paintings for sale,and soon became the most famous pastellist of her period. She journeyed pretty well all over the Continent, winning an extraordinary success wherever she went, as well as a place in all the Academies of note, from the Clementina at Bologna to the Royal Academy at Paris. Rosalba Carriera arrived in Paris in April 1720; she kept a diary of her experiences, and students of French history should read it in the edition annotated by Alfred Sensier. But here we are concerned with the art alone of Rosalba Carriera, an art rich in colour, swift and nervous in drawing, full of character, and modelled always with vigour and with ease. cheap oil paintings

Returning now to an earlier traveller, Sophonisba Anguisciola, we meet with another portraitist of real merit, more self-contained than Rosalba, less impetuous, but fresh, witty, sincere and charming. It is probable that she was born in 1533. After studying for some time at Cremona, under Bernardino Campi, Sophonisba Anguisciola began to make fun of the little girls of the period. Vasari set the greatest store by one of these satirical sketches, representing a boy with a lobster clawed to his finger, and a small girl laughing at his nimbleness. The subject of another skit was an old woman studying the Alphabet, much to the amusement of a baby girl. paintings reproductions

School of Cremona, XVI Century

THREE SISTERS OF SOPHONISBA ANGUISCIOLA PLAYING AT CHESS.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY HANFSTAENGL
AFTER THE PAINTING IN THE RACZYNSKI COLLECTION.
VASARI SAW THIS PICTURE AND SAID THAT "THE FIGURES WANTED ONLY VOICE TO BE ALIVE."
Sophonisba Anguisciola or Angussola, Painter
1533(?)-1626