Focus on this artwork and discuss the Composition.
In an agreeable garden Lucia, the third born of the Anguissola children, is moving some chess pieces; in front of her is Minerva, the fourth born, who is reacting to her adversary. She attracts the attention of the youngest sister, Europa (the fifth born) who is following the game and laughing. Minerva appears in a later painting (the Anguissola Family Portrait, but as an adolescent. The Portrait of Europa was painted by Lucia Anguissola possibly in the year after. Europa Anguissola is also identifiable as the child in the pencil drawing, Old Woman Studying the Alphabet with a Laughing Girl, today in the Uffizi, where the maid is also present, but older than the woman that appears in The Game of Chess.
Lucia is in action, while the housemaid observes the scene. There is a clear contrast in physiognomy between the younger (rich) women and the elder (common) woman. The young Anguissola women have jewels, embroidered clothes, and elaborate hairstyles. Minerva wears the same necklace as the Portrait of a Lady that is in Berlin and now identified as Bianca Ponzoni Anguissola – the mother of the three girls around the chessboard. The picture takes place in a domestic setting, circled with friendly figures, but the competitiveness of a game of chess is also visible. In the garden an old oak tree grows, laden in branches: it is a symbol of the solidity of family relationships. In the background is a light blue landscape, painted in the Flemish style.
Lucia Anguissola Anguissola Family Portrait