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Sofonisba Anguissola · 1555

The Chess Game

Posters from $15.00 CAD · Canvas from $39.00 CAD

Ships to the US & Canada

Sofonisba's three sisters playing chess in their Cremona garden, a servant looking on — the first Western painting to treat noblewomen casually at home. National Museum, Poznań.

Up to 24 × 16 in · landscape

Size

Larger sizes are unavailable for this painting because the source scan's resolution wouldn't print at gallery quality.

Format & finish

Archival cotton canvas stretched over a wooden frame. Ready to hang as-is. No external frame.

Scale next to a 5'10" person

2416

+ tax at checkout

Materials & quality

Canvas & inks

Giclée-printed on archival cotton canvas with fade-resistant pigment inks, hand-stretched over wooden bars. Gallery-wrapped — ready to hang with no extra frame needed.

Floater frame

Hand-finished solid wood floater frame in five finishes. The canvas sits inside with a clean shadow gap — the way galleries hang contemporary canvas.

Posters

Premium archival paper — 200 gsm soft matte or 230 gsm vibrant glossy. Ships flat or rolled, ready for your own frame.

Faithful to the source

Printed from the highest-resolution museum and archive scans available. Each painting's maximum size is capped at what its source scan can support at gallery quality.

The story of The Chess Game

The Game of Chess is an oil-on-canvas painting created around 1555 by the Italian Renaissance artist Sofonisba Anguissola. Anguissola was 23 years old when she created the painting, which is now housed at the National Museum in Poznań, Poland.

Adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sofonisba Anguissola

Sofonisba Anguissola was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cremona to a relatively poor noble family. She received a well-rounded education that included the fine arts, and her apprenticeship with local painters set a precedent for women to be accepted as students of art. As a young woman, Anguissola travelled to Rome where she was introduced to Michelangelo, who immediately recognized her talent, and to Milan, where she painted Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba. The Spanish queen, Elizabeth of Valois, was a keen amateur painter, and in 1559 Anguissola was recruited to go to Madrid as her tutor, with the rank of lady-in-waiting. She later became an official court painter to the king, Philip II, and adapted her style to the more formal requirements of official portraits for the Spanish court. After the Queen's death, Philip helped arrange an aristocratic marriage for her. She moved to Sicily, and later Pisa and Genoa, where she continued to practice as a leading portrait painter.

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Biography adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.