Famous Paintings: Portrait of a Noblewoman

Famous Paintings Reviewed

Famous Paintings: Portrait of a Noblewoman

Posted by Susan Benford

An art history blog post from Famous Paintings Reviewed.

guerilla girls naked met The dearth of famous paintings by female artists isn't art history news, but after recently seeing the Guerilla Girls poster, Do Women Have to be Naked to get into the Met Museum?, I was curious - which woman in art history was first deemed a famous painter? Introducing Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614) of Bologna, Italy.

Renaissance art was informed by the guild system in Florence and Siena, which educated artists, helped with commissions, and discouraged female artists. The system, though, was more relaxed in Northern Italian cities like Bologna. The daughter of Prospero Fontana, a Late Mannerist painter (and occasional head of the local painter's guild), Lavinia was tutored by him and exposed to Renaissance art by Correggio, Raphael, and Parmigianino.

By the 1570s, Lavinia Fontana was a highly regarded painter not only of portraits -- the typical, if only, option for female painters because they were forbidden to study anatomy - but also of large altarpieces, and art paintings depicting mythological and religious themes. She was the most sought after portraitist in Bologna, and was patronized by the Bolognese Pope Gregory XIII. When her reputation eclipsed that of her husband, the painter Gian Paolo Zappi, he became her assistant and primary caregiver for the couple's eleven children. After Fontana's fame spread to Rome, she moved there to become a portraitist at the court of Pope Paul V.

Lavinia Fontana. Portrait of a Noblewoman, ca. 1580. Oil on canvas, 45 1/4" by 35 1/4". National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay.

Portrait of a Noblewoman epitomizes Fontana's technical prowess in what is believed to be a wedding portrait. Fontana's use of a dark background amplifies the noblewoman's sumptuous attire. With light pouring in from the left, every reflection from her jewels is captured, as is the textural differences among the silk, satin and lace of her wedding attire (most Bolognese wedding dresses during the Renaissance were red). The woman modestly averts her eyes from the viewer while she strokes a small dog, a frequent symbol of fidelity. Hanging from her belt and dangling in the foreground is an oddity - the pelt of a marten whose head and jaws are bejeweled, another marker of her wealth.

lavinia fontana self portrait Fontana accomplished some legendary "firsts" in art history -- she had a continuous 40 year long career; she produced some 135 art paintings, making her the first female artist in Western Europe to work competitively with men, outside a court or convent; and she had one, if not the, first stay-at-home husbandsl

Left: Self Portrait, Lavinia Fontana.

Tags: art paintings, Renaissance paintings, female artists

Comments

We are on the same brain wave! I've been researching Lavinia Fontana this week as well. I'm so glad that you have written a post on her. The self-portrait of Fontana at the spinet (at the bottom of your post) is especially interesting to me. Like the Portrait of a Noblewoman, this self-portrait is thought to be a wedding portrait (right before Fontana's marriage to Paolo Zappi in 1577). The coral knot placed on the spinet is also seen as a symbol of betrothal. There is an interesting blog post which discusses this painting:

http://arth335001.blogspot.com/2010/04/lavinia-fontana-self-portrait-at-spinet.html

Cheers!

Posted @ Wednesday, January 12, 2011 10:52 PM by M

Interesting to read a post on an early female artists - thanks! It's worth looking at Germaine Greer's book "The Obstacle Race:the Fortunes of Women Painters and their works" - published in the late 1970s, still of interest.

Posted @ Tuesday, January 18, 2011 11:56 AM by pauline thomas

Pauline,

Thanks for the book recommendation - it's one I'll definitely read soon, as the dearth of information about female painters is getting more and more perturbing...

Susan

Posted @ Tuesday, January 18, 2011 1:55 PM by Susan Benford

What a great post! It's easy to forget that women artists existed in the past - they receive so little attention. I look forward to including this in the February Art History Carnival, which will be posted tomorrow atwww.theearthlyparadise.com. Thanks again!

Posted @ Monday, January 31, 2011 3:22 PM by Margaret Lozano

The opposite is therefore also true and equally valid. "More than 95% of the artists in the Modern Arts Section are men, but only 15% of them nudes are male."

Posted @ Monday, March 05, 2012 11:53 AM by Brenda

While I appreciate your point, male artists have historically not been interested in painting the male body; female painters have, for the majority of art history, been prohibited from doing so. That explains the dearth of paintings of nude men.

Susan Benford

Posted @ Tuesday, March 06, 2012 11:15 AM by Susan Benford

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Famous Paintings: Portrait of a Noblewoman

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