Sofonisba at the Easel face swap

Where this one comes from

Sofonisba Anguissola painted this in 1556, in Cremona, where her father had taken the unusual step of apprenticing his daughters to a painter. Michelangelo saw her drawings and sent comments back. In 1559 Philip II brought her to Madrid as a court painter and lady-in-waiting, where she stayed for over a decade. She lived to around ninety-two, and Van Dyck, who visited her near the end, said she gave him better advice on painting than anyone.

What is in the picture

She sits at an easel with the brush in her right hand and the maulstick in her left, painting a Madonna and Child that is already most of the way finished. The dress is dark and expensive and entirely without frills, and a plain white collar closes it at the neck. She looks out at you rather than at the canvas. Putting a religious picture inside the self-portrait was the argument: a woman of her rank could not be seen as a tradeswoman, but she could be seen as devout.

When people use it

For doing the work and being seen doing it. It suits a progress post, a portfolio, and any moment where the point is that you made the thing yourself.

How your face lands in it

A small, calm, front-facing head lit flatly, with the hair drawn back tight and no shadow to match. Straightforward. Because the face occupies a modest share of a busy picture, a sharp photograph helps more here than in the close portraits, and the finished image keeps both painters in it — you, and the Madonna she is working on.

Self-Portrait at the Easel — Sofonisba Anguissola, 1556. Sofonisba Anguissola died in 1625, which put the painting in the public domain long ago; the photograph of a flat work that old carries no rights of its own. Source

Also in: Paintings · Self-portraits · Renaissance