Female artists in Europe didn't start becoming well-known until the Renaissance. Artists were no longer preoccupied with depicting religious scenes and instead turned their attention to the human form, art history, and mathematics. Since the rise of humanism, art has become more philosophical and theoretical.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Anguissola was one of the finest artists of the late Renaissance.  Since she was born into an artistic family in Italy, Anguissola was able to focus on portraiture rather than the more common still-life subject matter for ladies of her era. She has worked with more profound study and extraordinary grace than any woman of our times at design problems, as noted in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1566). Not only has she learned to draw, paint, copy from nature, and reproduce the most skillful works by other artists, but she has also painted some of the rarest and most beautiful paintings ever seen.

Known primarily for her portraiture, Sofonisba Anguissola (ca. 1532–November 1625) was a late Renaissance painter from Cremona, Italy. She broke new ground as a pioneering female artist by becoming widely recognized worldwide. Her father was a nobleman rather than a painter, making her family history particularly rare among female artists. Anguissola was the eldest of eight children, seven girls, and one boy, all of whom came from wealthy backgrounds.

When word of Anguissola's talent spread, she was invited to the court of Philip II in 1559. There, she painted portraits and served as an attendant to the infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia (later the archduchess of Austria) and a lady-in-waiting to Philip's third wife, Elizabeth of Valois. Most of Anguissola's court paintings from the 17th century were destroyed in a fire.

Late in 1579, Anguissola met the ship's captain, a Genoese nobleman named Orazio Lomellino, and they wed the following year, in January 1580, on a boat en route to Cremona. It is believed that the couple resided in Genoa beginning in 1584 and continuing until 1616 or 1620. In her later years, she looked to the paintings of Genoese artist Luca Cambiaso for inspiration. Many male artists of the time, including Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, Giovanni Battista Moroni, Alonso Sánchez Coello, and Francisco de Zurbarán, were wrongly credited with creating Anguissola's paintings. On July 12, 1624, near the end of her life, the young Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck visited her, taking notes on the counsel she gave him and sketching the elderly artist.

Anguissola eventually settled in Genoa, where she continued to paint and teach well into old age. People often point to Anguissola's The Game of Chess as his most well-known creation. Art historians agree that this work represents the earliest depiction of a typical Italian domestic setting.

Most paintings Sofonisba Anguissola did are about Portrait, and other subjects.

Most of the artist's works that can be seen by the public today are now kept in museums like Museo Nacional del Prado, and others.

Famous Sofonisba Anguissola period artists include Veronese (Italian, 1528 -1588), El Greco (Greek, 1541 -1614), Pieter Bruegel the Elder (Dutch, ca. 1525 -1569), Jan Brueghel the Elder (Belgian, 1568 -1625), and others.

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