"the painting is dedicated to depicting two sisters, very elegant, with a hieratic look, intent on holding hands. The faces, although partially abraded by ancient, violent cleanings, retain a glazed quality and an effective design construction. The dresses, however, present a more material structure, created with meticulous precision. The 1911 inventory interpreted them as daughters of charles emmanuel i and catherine michael of habsburg or as margaret and maria apollonia, who were actually separated by six years, which would seem impossible when looking at the image of two sisters who are closer in age. Perhaps rather than maria apollonia it could be isabella, born two years after margherita, but if this were the case it would mean that the painting was painted in 1595 when the two princesses were respectively 6 and 4 years old. However, it has been argued that the clothes are based on the fashion of the previous generation, between 1565 and 1565. 1575. As for the author, the work has been doubtfully traced back to sofonisba aunguissola, lady-in-waiting to isabella of valois and court painter of philip ii from 1559. A double portrait of the infants isabella chiara eugenia and caterina micaela from 1570 is known to be very close to the painting in question. The 1836 inventory proves that the painting was transferred from turin between 1823 and 1830 (the latter year in which the following were recorded: "two girls dressed in red"). A paper label from the "house of his majesty the king in genoa", dated 1911, cataloged the work as a portrait of margaret of savoy and her sister maria, exactly as the following inventories of 1925 and 1950 will do. By virtue of that interpretation the painting was exhibited in mantua in 1937, at the exhibition on gonzaga iconography, but already then the identity of maria was corrected with isabella. Finally, thanks to the latest restoration, we became certain that both the fine supporting canvas and the pictorial material can be dated - without doubt - to the late sixteenth century, thus being able to archive the idea that it could be an eighteenth-century copy obtained from a lost original" [1]. Date: circa 1570-1575. Medium: oil on canvas. Collection: Royal Palace of Genoa. Anguissola - Doppio ritratto delle principesse infanti Isabella Chiara Eugenia e Caterina Micaela (?)
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