Between the ages of 11 and 13, Sofonisba Anguissola undertook her initial artistic training which followed the educational guidelines established for the aristocracy. She thus received classes in music, dance, literature, drawing and painting, taught for the latter two by the painters Bernardino Campi (1522-1591) and Bernardino Gatti (ca.1495-1576). Anguissola proved outstanding in drawing and above all as a portraitist, practising constantly with her own face and by depicting family members.

Her very thorough training is evident in her numerous self-portraits (more than any other woman had produced up to that date) which reflect feminine ideals of the time: discretion, modesty and prudence. Anguissola produced small, bust-length or half-length images that functioned to disseminate her image and her virtues.

Thanks to her father’s diplomacy these self-portraits became “letters of introduction” and rare collector’s items which forged Anguissola’s early fame as a woman painter. The result was the creation of a legend that other women aimed to emulate, most importantly Lavinia Fontana who in her self-portrait of 1577 reused Anguissola’s model in order to emphasise that same status of educated woman and artist.