Great Women Masters of Art

One of the first famous paintings I saw was The Lady in Ermine, which hangs in Pollock House, Glasgow. It is a very striking portrait of a beautiful young woman swathed in fur with an intriguing look in her painted eye; my father told me it was by the enigmatic old master known as El Greco. It is reproduced on page 44 of this book and tentatively attributed to Sofonisba Anguissola (c.1535‐1625), “the greatest female Italian painter of the Renaissance”. According to one powerful school of thought, the fascinating sitter was not El Greco's wife but the Infanta Catalina...