# A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Sirani, Elisabetta

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SIRANI, ELISABETTA,
Was born in Bologna, in 1638. Her father, Gian Andrea Sirani, was a painter of some reputation, and had been a favourite scholar of Guido, and successful imitator of his style. The manifestations of real genius are usually to be discovered at the earliest age; and Elisabetta, when almost an infant, excited attention by her attempts at drawing. These baby pencillings, though they attracted the notice of her father, did not give him the idea of instructing her, because she was a girl. Fortunately, a visitor at the house. Count Canonico Malvasia, a man of cultivated mind and enlarged views, used his influence with Sirani, and represented to him the culpability of stifling the rare talent that was developing itself in the little maiden. From this time she was educated for her future profession, and every study was attended to that could be useful to improve her genius. Her delight in intellectual cultivation was only equalled by her conscientious industry; the most complete success crowned her application. As a painter, her works take place among the best Italian masters. She has also left some very excellent engravings, and displayed no mean ability in modelling in plaster. Before she had attained her eighteenth year, ​she had painted many large historical pieces, which were regarded with admiration, and obtained an honourable situation in the various churches. Besides this, the young artist was a very excellent musician, singing beautifully, and playing with grace upon the harp. She was as remarkable for her plain good sense and amiable disposition, as for her talents. The solace and support of her invalid father, she put into his hands all the money she received for her pictures. Her mother having become paralytic, the household affairs devolved upon her; and her attention to the minutiae of inferior occupations, as well as her motherly care of her younger sisters, proved that the brilliant exercise of the most refined accomplishments and the most intellectual attainments is by no means incompatible with the perfect discharge of those menial employments to which the wisdom of some Solomons would limit the faculties of woman.
It would be impossible to enumerate the works of this indefatigable artist. She was admired and visited by the great of that day, who vied with one another in the desire to obtain specimens of her pencil. At one time, a committee appointed to order a large picture of the baptism of Jesus, to be placed opposite a Holy Supper in the church of Certosini, called upon her. Radiant with inspiration, the girl, then scarcely twenty, took a sheet of paper, and, before the eyes of the astonished beholders, with the utmost promptness, drew in Indian ink, that composition so rich in figures, so spirited in its details, and so grand in its ensemble. As soon as it was finished, it was hung where it now stands, and drew an immense course of admiring spectators. The drawing, the colouring, the harmony of the parts, have obtained the praise and enthusiastic tributes of all succeeding artists. Her fame was spread throughout Italy, and foreign courts became desirous of extending to her their patronage. A large picture was bespoken by the Empress Eleonora, widow of Ferdinand the Third, when she was assailed by a disease of the stomach, which, after a few months of slight indisposition, attacked her so violently, that in less than twenty-four hours she was reduced to extremity. She received the sacrament, and died on the 28th. of August, her birth-day. She was twenty-seven years of age. As she was apparently robust and of good constitution, suspicions arose of poison having been administered to her; but, upon a post mortem examination, no conclusive evidence could be found; and as the suspected individual (a servant) was acquitted in the legal scrutiny which took place, we are not warranted in the idea that her death was otherwise than a natural one.
There was a universal mourning among her fellow-citizens; all funeral honours were given to her remains, which were deposited near those of Guido, in the church of San Domenico.