A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Sirani, (Elizabeth)
SIRANI (ELIZABETH), a most excellent Painter, born in Bologna, 1638, the Daughter of Gio. Andria, a Painter;
Who, against her will, discovering the genius of his daughter, taught her design. So high was her reputation, that, in competition with her father, and many other renowned artists, she painted, in the Certosa of Bologna, the Baptism of Jesus Christ, in a picture of thirty hands high, in which the expression was so grand and effective, that she surpassed her father and the other competitors. She died universally lamented, at the age of twenty-six, 1665; by the execrable means of poison, the world was robbed of her, but it was never discovered by whom the deed was perpetrated. She was sumptuously interred in St. Dominico, in the sepulchre of Guido Reni, whose colouring in life she had followed. Her father never recovered this fatal blow, but lamented her to his death. She had two sisters, Barbara and Anna-Maria, who were painters of repute.