The Creation Of Eve (51 page)

In spite of the demands put on her time at the Spanish court, Sofonisba became the first woman painter to rise to prominence in the Italian Renaissance, and she was praised by Vasari in his renowned book
The Lives of the Artists
. Yet Sofonisba Anguissola's fame faded over time, in part because there were few signed paintings by her done after she arrived in Spain. Fortunately, her work is being rediscovered, in studies by Sylvia Ferino-Pagden and Maria Kusche, and Ilya Sandra Perlingieri, for instance, on whose books I based my research. Sofonisba's Unsigned works, long attributed to such artists as Alonso Sanchez Coello and El Greco, are slowly being recognized as hers. One of the rare signed works that has come down to Us, indicating its creation before her time at court, is Sofonisba's self-portrait in miniature, in which she holds a shield containing curiously intertwined initials--the miniature self-portrait described in this book.

In the last few decades, several of Sofonisba's portraits of Elisabeth of Valois have finally come to light, though none of those portraits of the Queen was done from life during the three-year period before Elisabeth's death. Into this breach of pictorial history comes my Use of the painting
Lady in a Fur Wrap
in our story.

Lady in a Fur Wrap
is a mystery in the world of art, with both its creator and its sitter as the subjects of debate. Some scholars attribute the painting to El Greco, but the style is nothing like his and very much like Sofonisba's. The attribution to El Greco appears to have begun as a cataloguing error when the painting was exhibited in the Louvre in 1838, hailed as a portrait by El Greco of his daughter. A little fact-finding at the time might have exposed this as a mistake: glaring stylistic differences in the portrait from El Greco's oeuvre aside, the artist didn't have a daughter.

Filling in the origins of
Lady in a Fur Wrap
is just the kind of challenge a novelist craves. After examining Sofonisba's portraits of Elisabeth of Valois as an adolescent fresh from France, with the plucked eyebrows and hairline
en vogue
at the French court, I tried to imagine how this child bride would look as she matured.
Lady in a Fur Wrap
, which I'd fallen in love with since I had seen it in Henry Kamen's celebrated biography
Philip of Spain
, immediately came to mind. Kamen attributed the painting to Sofonisba Anguissola--my first acquaintance with the painter--and identified the sitter as Elisabeth's younger daughter, Catalina Micaela. As I researched Sofonisba and her connection to Elisabeth, I wondered why the woman in the painting couldn't be Elisabeth herself, now mature at age twenty-two and wearing her eyebrows more naturally in the Spanish style. The rest of the facial structure is similar to that in Elisabeth's earlier portraits. Our story, based on fact and filled in with fiction, began to take shape.

But without the real-life, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes tender, and always flawed characters from history, our tale would not exist. It is their portraits--their fragile and elusive inner selves--I hoped to capture on my own canvas.

Acknowledgments

First, I would like to thank my agent, Emma Sweeney, who since reading an early draft of this manuscript has given me confidence, hope, and great suggestions every step of the way. Her enthusiastic support means the world to me, and I will always be grateful to her for finding the perfect editor for this project, Peternelle van Arsdale.

I fear there aren't sufficient words to thank Peternelle. I may have lost track of the number of drafts this book required, but I will never lose sight of my debt of gratitude to her. Her Unflagging energy and patience and, most important, her Understanding of my story, buoyed me during the arduous months of revision--all this, and with a sense of humor. She made hard work fun. I am thankful for--and amazed by--how much effort she put into every aspect of bringing my dream book to print.

I wish to acknowledge, too, those at Putnam whose support and efforts are crucial to this book: Ivan Held, Catharine Lynch, Kate Stark, Marilyn Ducksworth, and Meredith Phebus. Leslie Gelbman and Susan Allison at Berkley were early and enthusiastic supporters, and for that I am very grateful. I would also like to thank the Putnam sales force--you are my heroes! A round of thanks goes to Marc Yankus for his gorgeous cover collage, to John T. Burgoyne for the lovely map reproduced on the endpapers, and to Lisa Amoroso, Hyunhee Cho, Andrea Ho, Claire Vaccaro, and Nicole LaRoche for making this book so beautiful. Sincere thanks, also, to Lucia Raatma and Anna Jardine for their meticulous work on the manuscript. And a hearty thanks goes to the indefatigable and indispensable Lauren Kaplan for pursuing various details to the far ends of the earth.

Thanks are in order to Teresa Antolin, at the Centro Nacional de Educacion Ambiental (CENEAM) in Valsain, Spain, for sharing her time while enlightening me on Felipe II and the natural and human history of the area. I appreciate the insight into Spanish history afforded to me by Rosa Guillen over a memorable dinner at the Posada Monasterio Tortoles de Esgueva hosted by Jose L. Ardura. My education was also tremendously advanced by the prodigiously talented painter and instructor Chris di Domizio, of Atlanta, who opened the world of figurative drawing and painting to me, helping me Understand the myriad decisions a painter must make in composing a work. His class changed my life.

I am grateful for my early readers, Ruth Berberich, Brandy Nagel, Lauren Lynch, and Carolyn Koefoot, whose suggestions and encouragement have meant so much to me. Thank you to Grzegorz Filip for his translation work and for his time so generously given on my behalf; to Richard Hooker for allowing me to Use a portion of his translation of Michelangelo's Unfinished Sonnet 32; and to Steve Berberich for sharing the driving duties with my husband while I was chasing down facts in Spain. I would also like to thank Karen Torghele Anderson, Jan Johnstone, Sue Edmonds, and all the other brilliant members of the book club that has enriched my mind and soul for the past twenty years, for their kind wishes and enthusiasm.

And at the center of my heart, you'll find my family, whose love and pride keep me going. To my daughters, Lauren Lynch, Megan Cayes, and Alison Cullen, and my husband, Mike, I owe my greatest thanks.

Artworks Mentioned in
The Creation of Eve

SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA (c. 1532-1625)

Portrait of the Artist's Sisters Playing Chess
, 1555. Oil on canvas, 72 x 97 cm. Muzeum Narodowe, Poznan, Poland.

Boy Bitten by a Crawfish
, c. 1554. Black chalk and charcoal on brown paper, 32.2 x 37.5 cm. Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples.

Self-Portrait (with Emblem)
, c. 1556. Oil on parchment, 8.3 x 6.4 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Portrait of Amilcare, Minerva, and Asdrubale Anguissola
, c. 1557-1558. Oil on canvas, 157 x 122 cm. Nivaagaards Malerisamling, Niva, Denmark.

Self-Portrait at an Easel
, c. 1556. Oil on canvas, 66 x 57 cm. Muzeum Zamek, Lancut, Poland. (Reproduced on page vii.)

Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, after Sofonisba Anguissola,
Portrait of Isabel de Valois
(Elisabeth of Valois), 1606. Oil on canvas, 119 x 84 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Self-Portrait at the Spinet
, 1561. Oil on canvas, 83 x 65 cm. Earl Spencer Collection, Althorp.

Attributed to Alonso Sanchez Coello, but here to Sofonisba Anguissola,
Portrait of Don Carlos
, c. 1560. Oil on canvas, 109 x 95 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Portrait of Juana of Austria and a Young Girl
, 1561. Oil on canvas, 194 x 108.3 cm. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

Portrait of Alessandro Farnese
, c. 1561. Oil on canvas, 107 x 79 cm. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.

Portrait of Isabel de Valois
(Elisabeth of Valois), c. 1565. Oil on canvas, 205 x 123 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

El Greco, attributed here to Sofonisba Anguissola,
Lady in a Fur Wrap
, 1577- 1580(?). Oil on canvas, 62 x 59 cm. Culture and Sport Glasgow (Museums). (Reproduced on page 379.)

HIERONYMUS BOSCH (c. 1453-1516)

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things
, 1485. Oil on wood, 120 x 150 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

The Garden of Earthly Delights
, 1504. Triptych, with shutters; oil on panel, central panel 220 x 195 cm; wings 220 x 97 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519)

Portrait of Mona Lisa
(1479-1528), also known as
La Gioconda
(portrait of the wife of Francesco del Giocondo), 1503-1506. Oil on wood, 77 x 53 cm. Musee du Louvre, Paris.

ALBRECHT DURER (1471-1528)

Study of Praying Hands
, 1508. Brush and ink heightened with white on blue-tinted paper, 29 x 20 cm. Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna.

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI (1475-1564)

Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1508-1512. Fresco, 40.23 x 13.4 m. Sistine Chapel, Vatican City.

The Last Judgment
, 1531-1541
.
Fresco, 137 x 122 m. Sistine Chapel, Vatican City.

The Bandini Pieta
(
The Florentine Pieta
), c. 1550. Marble, height 22.6 m. Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence.

David
, 1501-1504. Marble, height 5.17 m. Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence.

Brutus
, 1540. Marble, height 9.5 m. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence
.

RAPHAEL (RAFFAELLO SANZIO, 1483-1520)

Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione
, 1514-1515. Oil on canvas, 82 x 67 cm. Musee du Louvre, Paris.

The School of Athens
, 1509-1510. Fresco, 550 x 772 cm. Stanza della Segnatura, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City.

TITIAN (TIZIANO VECELLIO, c. 1488/1490-1576)

Danae and the Shower of Gold
, 1553-1554. Oil on canvas, 129 x 180 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Pope Paul III and His Nephews Alessandro and Ottavio Farnese
, 1546. Oil on canvas, 210 x 176 cm. Museo di Capodimonte, Naples.

Venus with Organist and Cupid
, 1548. Oil on canvas, 148 x 217 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid.