Page 78 - HISTORY ANGKOR
P. 78
LIFE AND LEGACY
sofonisba anguissola lived to the advanced age her portrait (opposite). Alongside a line drawing of
of 93. She died in 1625 in Palermo, Sicily, after long the elderly Sofonisba, Van Dyck describes meeting
outliving the siblings whom she had depicted with her in the pages of his sketchbook: “She recounted
such freshness and joy. The young baroque art- how she had been a miraculous painter from life,
ist Anthony Van Dyck visited her sometime in the and the greatest torment she had known was not
year before her death; he was intrigued to meet a being able to paint anymore, because of her failing
woman who had painted the “old” king of Spain and eyesight. Her hand was still steady, without any
corresponded with Michelangelo. He later painted trembling.”
