A rediscovered portrait by Sofonisba Anguissola, a pioneering female artist of the Italian Renaissance, has gone on public display for the first time in over a century at the Winter Show in New York. The painting, *Portrait of a Canon Regular* (1552), is Anguissola's earliest signed and dated work and was long considered lost until it was found in a private collection in North Carolina after being referenced in a 2019 monograph. It is being presented by Robert Simon Fine Art.
The display matters because it highlights the ongoing re-evaluation of women artists from history, whose contributions have often been overlooked. Anguissola's work has gained renewed attention in recent years, with retrospectives at major institutions like the Prado in Madrid and the Rijksmuseum Twenthe. The painting's rich details—including a Turkish rug and biblical references—also offer insight into the religious and political tensions of the 16th century, making it both an artistic and historical rediscovery.