Child Bitten by a Lobster

The Child Bitten by A Lobster is a drawing by the Italian painter Sofonisba Anguissola, executed in chalk and pencil on light blue paper, and dated to around 1554. It is in the collection of the Museo di Capodimonte, in Naples.

History

This drawing was originally in the collection of cardinal Fulvio Orsini. Around 1600 it was inherited by cardinal Odoardo Farnese, together with other works by Sofonisba Anguissola: The Game of Chess, the Self-Portrait at a Spinet, and an unidentified drawing. Then it came to the Bourbon of Naples, via the Farnese inheritance and is present in the 1644 and 1653 inventories of Palazzo Farnese, in Rome. In 1799 was taken to Naples and here the attribution to Sofonisba Anguissola was lost.
From a letter written by Tommaso Cavalieri to Cosimo I de' Medici, on 20 January 1562, accompanying the gift of two drawings, we know that Child Bitten by A Lobster was made on the suggestion of Michelangelo – to whom it had been sent for viewing – and depicted Asdrubale, the younger brother of Sofonisba :
According to Roberto Longhi, this version was originally thought it was a copy and the original drawing was in Berlin in a private collection. It was then attributed to Santi di Tito and the Berlin drawing was then considered a copy. Engravings were made from this drawing.

Description

The child has put his hand in a basket, where a lobster is hidden. He cries from the sudden pain, next to his little sister. This drawing, which anticipates Caravaggio's Boy Bitten by a Lizard, depicts one of the first expressions by the artist in which a sudden physical pain provokes an outpouring of grief. The naturalism, deriving from the studies of physiognomy by Leonardo da Vinci, spread in 1550s Lombardy and was also taken up by Anguissola.