In the Sixteenth Century, Two Women Painters Challenged Gender Roles

For Sofonisba Anguissola (ca. 1535–1625) and Lavinia Fontana (1552–1614), the subjects of the exhibition “A Tale of Two Women Painters,” on view at the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid until the beginning of February, the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were indeed the best of times and the worst of times to be an artist.
Both women were unusually encouraged by their families to pursue careers as painters. The Anguissola hailed from the northern Italian t