The 400-year mix-up over painter Claudia del Bufalo
A woman painted her sister in 1604. For centuries, everyone credited a man.
That is the starting point for new research on Claudia del Bufalo, a painter from Rome who is currently known for a single surviving work, the Portrait of Faustina del Bufalo (1604), as detailed by The Art Newspaper.
The picture shows an aristocratic-looking woman with red hair in luxurious brocade robes. An inscription identifies the sitter as the artist's sister, Lady Faustina del Bufalo.
For hundreds of years the portrait was given to a Claudio del Bufalo. The signature was read as a man's name. In the 1990s the painting sold at auction and was bought by a member of the del Bufalo family.
Researcher Francesca Curti has now untangled that ownership story. The historic del Bufalo family was established in Rome towards the end of the 15th century and held high-ranking roles in the city and the Papal Curia. Curti found that Claudia and Faustina were not members of that powerful family. They only shared the name.
The real Claudia lived in Rome and worked as a professional painter. She was also a poet and a theatrical impresario, someone who organises stage productions.
Her private life was turbulent. Although married, she took a lover and was sent to a convent to repent. Court papers from a trial in Rome name her as accused of hiding her husband after he killed her brother-in-law.
Paperwork points to more to find. Research on family inventories, lists of household possessions that help trace provenance, the documented chain of ownership, has shown at least two other significant paintings by Claudia that are now missing.
The portrait will feature in Woman Painter at the National Museum in Oslo, which runs 8 October to 7 February 2027. The show brings together 19 women painters from northern Europe and Italy working between 1550 and 1650. It is co-curated by Patrizia Cavazzini and Cynthia Osiecki.
The Oslo line-up puts Claudia alongside better-known names. It includes a Mary Magdalene by Artemisia Gentileschi that was thought to be by Ribera for many years before being proposed as a Gentileschi in 1970. Restoration later revealed that a box in the figure's left hand was a later addition painted to cover a hole in the canvas.
Another rediscovery is a still life showing a platter of grapes surrounded by dead birds and fruit. It was found in storage marked anonymous and has been newly attributed to the 17th-century Flemish artist Clara Peeters.
What makes this stand out is the scale of the correction. One signature misread as male hid a working artist, a separate family, and a dramatic life. For visitors, this means one portrait now opens onto murder papers, lost pictures and a much wider group of women who painted for a living.
