Page 77 - HISTORY ANGKOR

MYSTERY ARTIST, MYSTERY WOMAN

for many years the painting“Lady in a Fur Wrap” many historians accept this new attribution, others
(left) was attributed to El Greco, the Crete-born continue to insist that the painter was indeed So-
artist who lived in Spain. Reflecting an awareness fonisba, and that her sitter (whose identity is also
that Sofonisba Anguissola’s paintings had often unconfirmed) was the infanta Catalina Micaela.
been wrongly attributed to male painters, histo- This assertion brings another painting under the
rians have suggested this portrait was painted spotlight: The portrait (below) of Princess Catalina.
by her. In 2019 a joint study by Pollok House in The Prado attributes the work to Sánchez Coello
Glasgow—the painting’s owners—and the Prado while acknowledging that others attribute it to So-
Museum in Madrid concluded that “Lady in a Fur fonisba. In 1584, when the picture was painted, the
Wrap” is not by El Greco or Sofonisba, but by Span- infanta left Madrid for Savoy, not far from Genoa,
ish court painter Alonso Sánchez Coello. Although where Sofonisba was then living.

“LADY IN A FUR WRAP,” ATTRIBUTED
TO SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA AND
ALONSO SÁNCHEZ COELLO, 1577-79.
POLLOK HOUSE, GLASGOW, SCOTLAND
ALBUM/ORONOZ

THE INFANTA CATALINA MICAELA,
CIRCA 1584. ATTRIBUTED TO
SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA AND
ALONSO SÁNCHEZ COELLO. PRADO
MUSEUM, MADRID
ARTEFACT/ALAMY