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Elisabetta Sirani: Virgin and Child 1663
February 1, 2009 | | Leave a Comment
Elisabetta Sirani, Virgin and Child, 1663.
January 8, 1638 – August 28, 1665 Baroque Italian
Although she died before the age of thirty, Elisabetta Sirani had a profound influence on painting in seventeenth century Bologna. Sirani was not merely an accomplished painter, she also supported other women painters by establishing the first school, outside a convent, for women painters.
Sirani was the first woman in Bologna to focus on history painting; this was an important branch of painting and one not considered suitable for women. In Seicento Italy, portraiture was considered an appropriate art form for women; they were not expected to have the capacity for history paintings which required a man’s intellect and creativity. Sirani evidently read widely from her father’s collection from Pliny’s Natural History and Ripa’s Iconologia to Vasari’s Lives and was able to crack that glass ceiling! She chose to portray women who possessed character traits (of men)- strength, courage and dignity while downplaying the feminine attributes of erotic femininity.
Seventeenth century writer Malvasia included women artists of Bologna in his works writing biographies of both Elisabetta Sirani and Lavinia Fontana. The majority of Sirani’s religious paintings were of the Madonna and Child and painted as private devotional pictures for local collectors.
Sirani spent her life in Bologna, a city famous for its progressive attitude toward women’s rights and for producing successful female artists. Trained by her father, Sirani was encouraged in her career by Count Carlo Cesare Malvasia, a family friend and influential art critic. She became known for her ability to paint beautifully finished canvases so quickly that art lover’s visited her studio from far and wide to watch her work. Sirani’s portraits, mythological subjects, and especially her images of the Holy family, and the Virgin and Child, gained international fame. Her works were acquired by wealthy, noble, and even royal patrons, including the Grand Duke Cosimo III de Medici.
According to written records when she died at twenty-seven, the Italian artist Elisabetta Sirani had already produced two hundred paintings, drawings, and etchings. An independent painter by nineteen, Sirani ran her family’s workshop. When her father became incapacitated by gout, she supported her parents, three siblings, and herself entirely through her art. In addition to her substantial oeuvre, Sirani left an important legacy through her teaching. Her pupils included her two sisters, Barbara and Anna Maria, and more than a dozen other young women who became professional painters.
http://nmwa.org/clara/search_artist_detail.asp?artist_id=24654&search=basic
Babette Bohn. The antique heroines of Elisabetta Sirani. Renaissance Studies, vol 16, issue 1. p52-79 (2002).
Elisabetta Sirani, Cleopatra, c. 1662–3 (private collection)
