Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/269

182 Leonardo had lived and taught in Milan, and his influence with that of other Lombard masters stirred Angelica to her very soul. Her pictures soon attracted the attention of Robert d’Este, who became her patron and placed her in the care of the Duchess of Carrara. This early association with a circle of cultured and elegant men and women was doubtless the origin of the self-possession and modest dignity which characterized Angelica Kauff man through life and enabled her becomingly to accept the honors that were showered upon her.

Her happy life at Milan ended all too soon. Her mother died, and her father decided to return to his native Schwarzenburg to execute some extensive decorative works in that vicinity. In the interior decoration of a church Angelica painted in fresco the figures of the twelve apostles after engravings from the works of Piazetta.

The coarse, homely life of Schwarzenburg was in extreme contrast to that of Milan and was most uncongenial to a sensitive nature ; but Angelica was saved from melancholy by the companionship she felt in the grand pine forests, which soothed her discontent, while her work left her little time to pine for the happiness she had left or even to mourn the terrible loss of her mother.

Her father's restlessness returned, and they were again in Milan for a short time, and then in Florence. Here she studied assiduously awhile, but again her father's discontent drove him on, and they went to Rome.

Angelica was now eighteen years old, and in a measure