Lavinia Fontana Biography
Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614) is universally considered the first woman to be a professional artist in the history of Western art. Lavinia Fontana ran her own thriving shop in her native Bologna and then in Rome.
Italian painter of late mannerism, born in Bologna on 24 August 1552 to Prospero Fontana, also a mannerist painter. Raised in her father's workshop, she was able to draw on a vast range of pictorial experiences, alongside her father's teachings, learning from great artists such as Parmigianino, Pellegrino Tibaldi, Veronese, Jacopo Bassano, Sofonisba Anguissola and the Carracci.
After marrying the Imola painter Giovan Paolo Zappi at 25, Lavinia continued to paint, becoming known above all as a portraitist for the accuracy of female details such as clothing and hairstyles. He also created paintings of mythological, biblical and sacred subjects.
The first important commissions arrived in 1584, with the “Madonna Assunta di Ponte Santo ei Santi Cassiano e Pier Crisologo” in Imola and a painting of “The Assumption of the Virgin” for a church in Bologna. But it was in Rome, where she moved in 1603 at the invitation of Pope Gregory XIII, that Lavinia achieved maximum success, becoming known as "the Pontifical Painter".
Thanks to the protection of the papal court, Lavinia performed numerous works for the nobility and diplomatic representations, including portraits, altarpieces and sculptures. Despite having eleven children, she managed to produce many works of art. Among his undisputed masterpieces is “Judith and Holofernes” now preserved at the Bargellini Museum in Bologna. A mystical crisis led her to retire to a monastery in 1613, together with her husband. Lavinia Fontana died in Rome in August 1614.
