The Game of Chess (Sofonisba Anguissola)

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The Game of Chess
Sofonisba Anguissola - Portrait of the Artist's Sisters Playing Chess - WGA00697.jpg
Artist Sofonisba Anguissola
Yearc. 1555
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensions72 cm× 97 cm(28 in× 38 in)
Location National Museum in Poznań, Poznań

The Game of Chess (or Portrait of the artist's sisters playing chess) is an oil-on-canvas painting executed ca. 1555 by Italian Renaissance artist Sofonisba Anguissola. Anguissola was 23 years old when she painted it.

Contents

The painting is signed and dated on the edge of the chessboard, where Anguissola left this Latin inscription: SOPHONISBA ANGUSSOLA VIRGO AMILCARIS FILIA EX VERA EFFIGIE TRES SUAS SORORES ET ANCILLAM PINXIT MDLV – "Sofonisba Angussola virgin daughter of Amilcare painted from life her three sisters and a maid 1555."

History

Giorgio Vasari, visiting Cremona, was a guest in the house of Amilcare Anguissola and there admired paintings by Amilcare's daughters. About The Game of Chess he wrote, "I have seen this year in Cremona, in the house of her father a painting made with much diligence, the depiction of his three daughters, in the act of playing chess, and with them an old housemaid, done with such diligence and facility, that they appear alive, and the only thing missing is speech." This is the oldest document that mentions this painting, which remained hanging in the Anguissola family house for several years. [1]

The painting later arrived in Rome, together with the Self Portrait at a Spinet , and two of Anguissola's drawings (Child Bitten by a Lobster and another unidentified drawing) in the holdings of the humanist and collector Fulvio Orsini. They were then inherited by Cardinale Odoardo Farnese. The Game of Chess then turned up in Naples, after the Farnese inheritance had passed to the Bourbons, and it was eventually acquired by Luciano Bonaparte. It changed hands once more after this and arrived in the collection that today forms part of the National Museum in Poznań, Poland.

Three engravings based on this painting are known.

The painting has undergone evident repaintings.

Composition

In an agreeable garden Lucia, the third born of the Anguissola children, is moving some chess pieces; in front of her is Minerva, the fourth born, who is reacting to her adversary. She attracts the attention of the youngest sister, Europa (the fifth born) who is following the game and laughing. Minerva appears in a later painting (the Anguissola Family Portrait, but as an adolescent. The Portrait of Europa was painted by Lucia Anguissola possibly in the year after. Europa Anguissola is also identifiable as the child in the pencil drawing, Old Woman Studying the Alphabet with a Laughing Girl, today in the Uffizi, where the maid is also present, but older than the woman that appears in The Game of Chess.

Lucia is in action, while the housemaid observes the scene. There is a clear contrast in physiognomy between the younger (rich) women and the elder (common) woman. The young Anguissola women have jewels, embroidered clothes, and elaborate hairstyles. Minerva wears the same necklace as the Portrait of a Lady that is in Berlin and now identified as Bianca Ponzoni Anguissola – the mother of the three girls around the chessboard. The picture takes place in a domestic setting, circled with friendly figures, but the competitiveness of a game of chess is also visible. In the garden an old oak tree grows, laden in branches: it is a symbol of the solidity of family relationships. In the background is a light blue landscape, painted in the Flemish style.

Portrayal of Women Playing Chess

The extravagant, “queenly attire” the three Anguissola sisters wear serve as indications that Sofonisba Anguissola did not paint this scene to recreate a specific event of chess playing between the sisters. [2] The luxurious costume Anguissola dresses her sisters in draws the connection back to the domestic traditions of embroidery or weaving, but by portraying this group immersed in an activity completely different from the normal skills that were vital to a girl's education during this time period, Anguissola shows these young women in a new realm. [2]

The Game of Chess features an all-female group. New chess rules were in place in Italy by the time of the creation of Anguissola's painting, changing the hierarchy of power so that the queen held most importance out of all chess pieces. [3] Anguissola includes her sisters and maidservant in this composition but excludes her younger brother, Asdrubale. [2] The fully female cast is unlike many of the sixteenth-century artworks featuring games of chess that preceded it, like Giulio Campi’s The Chess Game or Lucas van Leyden’s Chess Game. [3] Chess was part of the humanistic education and was considered an excellent intellectual exercise for a human; in contrast the card and dice games, which were forbidden to women, but they were based on luck and not on intelligence. Anguissola's work acts as a "self-celebration of women's accomplishments and talent" [3] in how it challenges past "exclu[sions of] women from the representation of chess and an intellectual pursuit." [4]

According to an old tradition, the chess alluded to a Battle of the Amazons. In his poem from 1550 entitled Scacchia Ludus (or The Game of Chess), the Cremonese poet and bishop of Alba, Marco Gerolamo Vida, sometimes called the queen virgo and sometimes amazon and said that it can move in any direction. [5] The queens had the possibility of being resurrected from a pawn. [6] In the final section Vida mentions a battle between two queens, in which the white queen dies and rises again. At the end the black queen checkmates the white. The battle painted by Anguissola alludes to the search for a conquering woman. With this the chessboard becomes an allegory and the true queens are the two Anguissola sisters, then spend their life virtuously, taking part in an educational exercise. [7]

Further reading

Related Research Articles

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Sofonisba Anguissola, also known as Sophonisba Angussola or Sophonisba Anguisciola, was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cremona to a relatively poor noble family. She received a well-rounded education that included the fine arts, and her apprenticeship with local painters set a precedent for women to be accepted as students of art. As a young woman, Anguissola traveled to Rome where she was introduced to Michelangelo, who immediately recognized her talent, and to Milan, where she painted the Duke of Alba. The Spanish queen, Elizabeth of Valois, was a keen amateur painter and in 1559 Anguissola was recruited to go to Madrid as her tutor, with the rank of lady-in-waiting. She later became an official court painter to the king, Philip II, and adapted her style to the more formal requirements of official portraits for the Spanish court. After the queen's death, Philip helped arrange an aristocratic marriage for her. She moved to Sicily, and later Pisa and Genoa, where she continued to practice as a leading portrait painter.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucia Anguissola</span> Italian artist (1536 or 1538 – c. 1565-1568)

Lucia Anguissola was an Italian Mannerist painter of the late Renaissance. Born in Cremona, Italy, she was the third daughter among the seven children of Amilcare Anguissola and Bianca Ponzoni. Her father was a member of the Genoese minor nobility and encouraged his five daughters to develop artistic skills alongside their humanist education. Lucia most likely trained with her renowned eldest sister Sofonisba Anguissola. Her paintings, mainly portraits, are similar in style and technique to those of her sister. Contemporary critics considered her skill exemplary; according to seventeenth-century biographer Filippo Baldinucci, Lucia had the potential to "become a better artist than even Sofonisba" had she not died so young.

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<i>Portrait of the Artists Family</i> (Sofonisba Anguissola) Painting by Sofonisba Anguissola

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Elena Anguissola was an Italian painter and nun. She was the sister of the better-known painter Sofonisba Anguissola.

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<i>The Chess Game</i> (Campi painting)

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<i>Miniature Self-Portrait</i> (Anguissola, Boston) Painting by Sofonisba Anguissola

Miniature Self-Portrait is a small oil-on-parchment painting by the Italian artist Sofonisba Anguissola. It was painted around 1556 and mounted on a medal from the same time. The choice of format is based on Angussiola's knowledge of the works of the famous miniaturist Giulio Clovio. The painting is held at the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston.

<i>Portrait of Elena Anguissola</i> (Southampton) Painting by Sofonisba Aguissola

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Portrait of Minerva Anguissola is a c. 1564 oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian painter Sofonisba Anguissola, now in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.

<i>Portrait of Elisabeth of Valois</i> Painting by Sofonisba Anguissola

Portrait of Elisabeth of Valois is an oil-on-canvas painting executed c.1561–1565 by the Italian artist Sofonisba Anguissola, now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.

<i>Portrait of Bianca Ponzoni Anguissola</i> Painting by Sofonisba Anguissola

Portrait of Bianca Ponzoni Anguissola or Lady in White is an oil-on canvas-painting created in 1557 by the Italian Renaissance painter Sofonisba Anguissola. It is a portrait of the artist's mother. It is now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. It is securely identified as the artist's mother, since it reuses two elements from The Game of Chess, Lucia's pearl headdress and Minerva/Elena's necklace Under the arm of the chair are the signature and date "Sophonisba Angussola Virgo F. 15.5.7".

<i>Portrait of Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia</i> (Anguissola) Painting by Sofonisba Anguissola

Portrait of Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia is a 1599 oil-on-canvas painting of Isabella Clara Eugenia by the Italian painter Sofonisba Anguissola, identified in 1992 by Maria Kusche. Owned by the Museo del Prado, it currently hangs in the Spanish Embassy in Paris.

<i>Portrait of Massimiliano II Stampa</i> Painting by Sofonisba Anguissola

Portrait of Massimiliano II Stampa is a c.1558 oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Sofonisba Anguissola, now in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, USA. It was previously misattributed to Giovan Battista Moroni, possibly due to stylistic similarities with Moroni's The Knight in Black.

Maria Kusche was a Spanish art historian of German descent, a specialist on painters at the royal court of Philip II of Spain, in particular Sofonisba Anguissola, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, and Alonso Sánchez Coello.

References

  1. ↑ Centro culturale ‘Città di Cremona’ in S. Maria della Pietà (Italy), et al., editors. Sofonisba Anguissola e Le Sue Sorelle. Leonardo arte, 1994, p190
  2. 1 2 3 Cole, Michael Wayne (11 February 2020). Sofonisba's lesson : a Renaissance artist and her work. Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-19832-3. OCLC   1108816930.
  3. 1 2 3 Garrard, Mary D. (2005). Here's looking at me : Sofonisba Anguissola and the problem of the woman artist. OCLC   887237750.
  4. ↑ SIMONS, P. (1993-01-01). "(Check)Mating the Grand Masters: The Gendered, Sexualized Politics of Chess in Renaissance Italy". Oxford Art Journal. 16 (1): 59–74. doi:10.1093/oxartj/16.1.59. ISSN   0142-6540.
  5. ↑ Marco Girolamo Vida, Poemata omnia. Hymni de reb. divinis, Christiados, De Arte poetica, De Bombyce, Scacchia, Bucolica Eclogae, Carmina diversi generis pleraq. non antehac edita
  6. ↑ Severino, Marco Aurelio. 1690. La Filosofia Overo Il Perche Degli Scacchi Per Cui Chiaramente Si Mostra Prima l'artificio della fabrica universale, poscia la ragion particolare della ordinanza, & degli andamenti tutti degli Scacchi: Overo Il Perche Degli Scacchi Per Cui Chiaramente Si Mostra Prima l'artificio della fabrica universale, poscia la ragion particolare della ordinanza, & degli andamenti tutti degli Scacchi. Napoli: Bulifon.
  7. ↑ Centro culturale ‘Città di Cremona’ in S. Maria della Pietà (Italy), et al., editors. Sofonisba Anguissola e Le Sue Sorelle. Leonardo arte, 1994, p68

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