[5][6] Flavio Carioli also came to this conclusion, but in 1885 Adolfo Venturi cited a letter sent to Ercole II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara in March 1556 by Anguissola's father with two paintings by her, a self-portrait intended for the duke's daughter Lucrezia and a Cleopatra (after a drawing by Michelangelo, probably a folio now in the Casa Buonarroti).

Venturi also recorded that in 1603-1604 cardinal Alessandro d'Este gave some of his paintings to Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor.

[7] Though no inventory of the paintings given to Rudolf survives, Venturi theorises that this self-portrait was one of them and the theory is accepted by all other art historians.

The collar of the light white shirt swells at the neck, in small soft folds.

The date is only one year earlier than that of the Game of Chess by the same painter, but at first sight this portrait seems to belong to a much more immature artistic phase.