LAVINIA FONTANA (attr. a) Lot n° 1148

(Bologna, 1552 - Rome, 1614) Portrait of a Young Woman Oil on copper, diam. cm 8 Lavinia Fontana, singular painter who went on a par with the first men of that profession (Avvisi Urbinati, Lat. 1077, c. 428 A-B in M. T. Cantaro, Lavinia Fontana Bolognese pittora singolare 1552-1614, Milan-Rome, 1989, p. 1), was an exquisite interpreter of late 16th-century Bolognese art aligned with the dictates of Counter-Reformation naturalism. Daughter and pupil of Prospero Fontana, Lavinia expressed a marked eclectic predisposition typical of her time and reached her own stylistic mark very early on, interested in Nordic influences and Carraccian suggestions, but her art unfolded with constant evolution throughout her career, particularly after her move to Rome in 1603 at the request of Gregory XIII. In the papal city, thanks to the prestigious protection, the painter in addition to producing altarpieces and works of a secular nature devoted herself intensely to portraiture and, according to Luigi Lanzi: more than by others she was coveted by Roman ladies, whose galeea better portrayed than man'. To these years would date the copper under consideration, characterized by a marked realism and sprezzatura, played on the vivid chromatic contrast of the robe that stands out against the purplish background. The face, caught in its natural state, shows close similarities with the coeval portraiture of Scipione Pulzone and Jacopo Zucchi. Reference bibliography: V. Fortunati, Lavinia Fontana (1552 - 1614), exhibition catalog edited by Vera Fortunati, Milan, 1994 C. P. Murphy, Lavinia Fontana. A Painter and Her Patrons in Sixteenth Century Bologna, New Haven, London, 2003, p. 89 V. Fortunati, Toward a History of Women Artists in Bologna between the Renaissance and the Baroque: Additions and Explanations, in Italian Women Artists from the Renaissance to the Baroque, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC, March ; July 2007, pp. 45-47