Lavinia Fontana

With Fritz Gerstel, Berlin;

His sale, Munich, Galerie Helbing, 2 March 1909, lot 22 (as Alonso Sanchez Coello);

Anonymous sale, Hannover, Harry Baerwald, 6-7 March 1963 (as Paolo Veronese);

Private collection, Marches;

From whom acquired by Donenc capiam Studio, Milan, 2007;

Anonymous sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, 18 April 2012, lot 529 (where unsold);

With Paolo Pocchini, Milan;

From whom acquired by the present owner.

H. Richter, "Harry Baerwald, Hannover," in Weltkunst 33, no. 5 (1 March 1963), p. 25, reproduced (as Paolo Veronese);

C. P. Murphy, Lavinia Fontana, A painter and her Patrons in Sixteenth-Century Bologna, New Haven and London 2003, p. 89 (as Scipione Pulzone);

V. Fortunati, “Toward a History of Women Artists in Bologna between the Renaissance and the Baroque: Additions and Clarifications,” in Italian Women Artists from Renaissance to Baroque, Washington D.C. 2007, pp. 45, 47, reproduced fig. 4 (as Lavinia Fontana).

This recently rediscovered painting by the celebrated portraitist Lavinia Fontana depicts an elegantly attired noblewoman. Shown three-quarter length, she holds a lace-trimmed handkerchief in her left hand, which she rests on her pregnant belly. Practically unique in its portrayal of a visibly expectant mother, the work may represent Lavinia herself, who produced several self-portraits over the course of her career and gave birth to eleven children. If it is indeed a self-portrait, the painting’s conceit seems to hinge on the elision between the roles of fertile mother and prolific artist, both encapsulated by Fontana. 

The woman’s refined attire consists of a black velvet overgarment trimmed with gold thread and decorated with small red ribbons. The dress has yellow taffeta sleeves and an elaborate lace collar that frames her face and draws attention to her distinct features. The attention Fontana lavished on the costume recalls Carlo Cesare Malvasia’s statement that Bolognese noblewomen “desired nothing more than to be portrayed by her,” owing in large part to the “frills” that “she portrays better than any man in the world.”¹

Based on this fashionable dress, Marzia Cataldi Gallo dates the portrait to the first half of the 1590s, which accords with Massimo Pulini’s suggestion that the work is a self-portrait of Fontana from circa 1592, when the artist was pregnant with one of her youngest children, Severo (born 5 December 1592) or Costanza (born 20 April1592).² Vera Fortunati similarly dates the portrait to the last decade of the sixteenth century.³ Maria Teresa Cantaro situates it at the turn of the sixteenth century, just before the artist’s move to Rome in 1604.⁴ Cantaro suggests the work may have been commissioned to mark the nuptials of either the Paduan noblewoman Laura Obizzi, who married Filippo Pepoli in 1600; the Piacenzian Margherita Anguiscola, who wed Federico Fantuzzi in 1595; or Caterina Fava, who became Cesare Pendasi’s wife in 1602.

The sitter wears elaborate, but not extravagant, jewelry: a string of pearls around her neck, simple gold bracelets on each wrist, and a single ring on each hand. From her double-stranded gold necklace hangs an ornate pendant that features precious stones (perhaps an amethyst) and three pearls. Her auburn hair is swept up in a style that Cataldi Gallo dates to the early 1590s; three gold hairpins ornament the braided coiffure.

¹ Quoted in Fortunati 2007, pp. 46-47.

² Undated written précis commissioned by the present owner; Dossier of June 2008.

³ Dossier of 23 July 2007.

⁴ Dossier of 24 June 2012.