Attributed to Sofonisba Anguissola (Cremona, c. 1535 - Palermo, 1625)_x000D_
"Portrait of the Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain"_x000D_
Oil on canvas. Circa 1585._x000D_
This painting must be a three-quarter length version of the portrait of the Infanta which is kept at the Prado Museum. Sofonisba Anguissola, born in Cremona to a noble family, received artistic and musical training, becoming so renowned that from 1559 and for 15 years she worked at the Spanish court in Madrid as a portrait artist, painting tutor and lady in waiting to Elizabeth of Valois, third wife of Philip II of Spain. When the queen died, the appreciation the monarch had for the painter was so great that she continued at court in charge of the education of the two infantas; the eldest, Isabella Clara Eugenia and the younger, Catherine Michelle. Around 1573 she returned to Italy, after having married a Sicilian nobleman, although the ties she had made with the Infantas were never entirely broken, as they met again in Italy at different times of her life. _x000D_
This magnificent painter, in the opinion of María Kusche, a great expert on Sofonisba´s Spanish period, would have been the true artist of the painting known as A Lady in a Fur Wrap, which is catalogued as a painting by El Greco, belonging to the Stirling Maxwell Collection at Pollok House in Glasgow. The controversy surrounding the true authorship of this painting has been going on since the 20th century, and there have been various opinions and critics writing on the subject. However, it was Maria Kusche, who died in 2012, basing her opinion on the previous study by Carmen Bernis from 1986 "La Dama del Armiño y la moda (A Lady in a Fur Wrap and fashion", who has produced more arguments, documents and analysis, to defend the theory that the painting is really by Sofonisba Anguissola. In Kusche´s own words: “the Lady, of course, is not unknown, and her fur is not ermine, nor can the painting be by El Greco. The subject is the Infanta Catherine Michelle, the beautiful fur which wraps her is lynx fur, and the painting shows the hand and the spirit of Sofonisba Anguissola".[1]_x000D_
Bibliography: [1] Maria Kusche, "Retratos y retratadores. Alonso Sánchez Coello y sus competidores Sofonisba Anguissola, Jorge de la Rúa y Rolan Moys". (Portraits and portrait painters. Alonso Sánchez Coello and his competitors, Sofonisba Anguissola, Jorge de la Rúa and Rolan Moys) Madrid 2003._x000D_
62 x 41 cm.