Portrait of a Noblewoman by Lavinia Fontana

In honor of Women’s History Month, we discover trailblazer Lavinia Fontana, a celebrity artist in Renaissance Italy. Her portraits were all the rage among the nobility of Bologna and with the help of a supportive (and broad-minded) husband/business manager, she became the first professional woman artist. 

You can view a larger version of the artwork at this link. 

We’ll also find out why this young woman is visiting the National Gallery of Art in DC and what’s in store for her homebase, the National Museum of Women in the Arts!

SHOW NOTES (TRANSCRIPT BELOW)

“A Long Look” opening and closing themes are by Ron Gelinas:
“Ascension” https://youtu.be/jGEdNSNkZoo and “Easy” https://youtu.be/2QGe6skVzSs

Episode music:
“Rondeau” and “My Mistress is as Fine as Faire ” performed by John Sayles

“Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 – 13 – Variatio 12 Canone alla Quarta” composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by Kimiko Ishizaka. 

http://www.jsayles.com/familypages/earlymusic.htm

https://musopen.org/music/4107-goldberg-variations-bwv-988/

Artwork information 
https://nmwa.org/art/collection/portrait-noblewoman/

Self-portrait 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15883827

Lavinia Fontana information
https://nmwa.org/art/artists/lavinia-fontana

https://www.nga.gov/press/acquisitions/2022/lavinia-fontana.html

https://www.nga.gov/stories/lavinia-fontana-and-lucia-bonasoni-garzoni-two-professional-women.html

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/fontana-lavinia

National Museum for Women in the Arts
https://nmwa.org/

https://nmwa.org/nmwa-at-home/

Lavinia Fontana: Pioneering Painter of the 16th Century (Getty)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgeDGtF11KY

Lavinia Fontana of Bologna, 1552-1614
Catalog for exhibition of the same name, National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1998.

Comments or questions are welcome at alonglookpodcast.com

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to A Long Look! I’m your host, Karen Jackson

Did you know most people spend only a few seconds looking at works of art? But what happens if you slow down and take a long look? 

Join me at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and let’s find out!

MUSIC

Today I’m looking at Portrait of a Noblewoman by Lavinia Fontana

If you want to follow along, you can find it at alonglookpodcast.com/portrait

Just a heads-up, this will take you to a different museum site. 

So what do you first notice?

A young woman with pale ivory skin stands angled to our left in this vertical portrait and gazes in that direction. She just about fills the canvas, which is about 4 ft tall by 3 ft wide and angles away from us a little. Soft light from the upper left makes her glow against the black background. 

She’s shown from the knees up dressed in an elegant ruby-red gown and her auburn hair is parted in the middle and gathered at the back of her head. A wreath of tiny white and pink blossoms studded with pearls perches on top. She has a heart-shaped face with slender brows over grey eyes and a small pale mouth. 

The gown is covered with alternating vertical cherry-red and gold stripes that look like they’re embroidered. The gold bands have delicate leaves curling out on either side. The bodice has short sleeves, a high collar that frames her face, and ends in a fitted waist with the skirt flaring out over her hips. It’s layered over a white long-sleeved garment with a pattern of horizontal gold and silver stripes that peeks through the deep v-shaped neckline and has a stiff ruffled collar that brushes her jaw. 

This woman is just dripping with gold and pearl jewelry!! A long pendant earring hangs from her ear and a thick necklace made of clusters of gold, pearls and black gems nestles along that ruffled collar  with a crucifix hanging below. 

A longer necklace drapes over the bodice and is fastened to a brooch at the center of her chest, creating two long loops on either side. Another gold belt circles her narrow waist with a long chain swinging below. The chain ends in a kind of cone shape attached to a dark brown, indistinct object that hangs just below her left hip, on our right. The weird thing is, it looks like this thing has a paw she holds in the fingers of that hand! 

Her other hand reaches out to pet a little white dog with a ginger-brown patch on its face and ear. It’s balancing on its hind legs on a pedestal in the lower left corner as it looks up at her with adoring eyes. 

So, what is that thing on her belt?? 

MUSIC

Lavinia Fontana was one of the most successful painters of her time which was the late 1500s-early 1600s. She lived and worked in Bologna, a city in northern Italy roughly halfway between Florence and Venice. It was extremely unusual for a woman to be a professional painter during the Renaissance but Bologna had progressive views of women’s role in society. 

Lavinia was trained by her father Prospero, a prominent artist in the city. Her parents were pretty well-to-do and raised Lavinia to fit into high society. That meant that aside from painting, her education included Latin and music and all of this was designed to let her move easily among the nobility. 

Lavinia started out painting portraits of some of the prominent men her father knew but eventually it was their high-society wives who started hiring her for their portraits. These women often ran charitable groups and participated in public life and wanted their efforts and status immortalized.

Now, a big obstacle Lavinia faced was that single women couldn’t negotiate with clients or manage their own business. And she was expected to marry and have a family but still wanted to keep working, since she was doing so well. What to do? Where do you find a guy who’d marry Lavinia but let her be the breadwinner? 

This 16th-century unicorn ended up being one of her father’s students, Gian Paolo Zappi. Gian apparently wasn’t very good and it was clear he’d never make his living as an artist. So, their fathers drew up a marriage contract stating Lavinia would continue to paint professionally. Gian’s family went along with this because they expected her to have a lucrative career. The contract even specifies the earnings she was expected to make! To his credit, not only was Gian successful as her business manager and occasional assistant, he also ran their household of 11 children! 

Lavinia was also a trailblazer in her work. Aside from portraits, she painted all the same things her male colleagues did, like altarpieces and even scenes from mythology that included nudes, which was unheard of for a woman artist.

Along with talent, Lavinia had some awesome marketing skills. One way she built demand for her work was by making prominent families godparents to her kids, so of course, they’d get their portraits done and recommend her to all their friends! She kind of became a celebrity. One of her biographers describes Bolognese noblewomen as  “treating her and embracing her with extraordinary demonstrations of love and respect, considering themselves fortunate to have seen her on the street…the greatest thing that they desired would be to have her paint their portraits.” 

By the time she was 50, Lavinia had become so famous, she was invited by the Pope to move to Rome where she worked for him and the powerful Borghese family. So, she and the family headed south and remained there for the rest of her life. 

MUSIC

We don’t know who this young woman was but this was probably her wedding portrait. Wedding portraits were used as part of the negotiations between two families when arranging a marriage. Her sumptuous dress and jewelry proved she was from a wealthy family and were the kind of thing a bride would wear. Plus, that little pup was a symbol of faithfulness, promising she’d be a loyal wife. 

BTW, that odd black object hanging from her waist is actually an animal skin! It’s the pelt of a marten, an animal that resembles a mink and that’s its head stuffed into that gold cone-shaped ornament. It was just another reminder of her wealth, although one source I found said its purpose was to attract fleas away from your skin and clothing! So I guess the wealthy liked having a flea-infested dead thing hanging off their waist?? 

Speaking of wedding portraits…even though their marriage arrangement was unusual, Lavinia stuck with tradition by painting a self-portrait for Gian for their wedding. You can see it on the blog post. It shows her fashionably dressed and sitting at a clavichord, a sort of early piano, with her easel highlighted in the background. 

Portrait of a Noblewoman is just visiting the Gallery while its homebase, the National Museum of Women in the Arts here in DC undergoes a big renovation. The good news is, it’s supposed to open soon, in October 2023! It’s a gorgeous building and impressive collection, so you should absolutely check it out. 

OUTRO:

I hope you’ll try out a long look on your next museum visit! Just take a little time and let the art reveal itself.

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Thanks for joining me!