Lavinia Fontana, the Self-Fashioned Painter

August 24, 2024 9:26 AM

The first woman to make her living from painting captured herself and other women in the ways they wished to be perceived. Ed Simon for Hyperallergic (Editorial comment: the Cassat of late 1500s Bologna).
posted by bq (10 comments total)

Great article. Fontana's portrait of Bianca degli Utili Maselli and her children is amazing.

I'm a big fan of Hyperallergic. Relatedly, its coverage of the debacle surrounding the Artemisia Gentileschi exhibit in Genoa was eye-opening.
posted by the sobsister at 10:12 AM on August 24 [5 favorites]

This is a great read!
posted by Czjewel at 10:31 AM on August 24 [1 favorite]

fascinating bit of history! I had not heard of her.
posted by supermedusa at 10:51 AM on August 24

Thank you for the Gentileschi link, I hadn't seen that (ARGH, TERRIBLE).
posted by bq at 11:26 AM on August 24 [1 favorite]

The final self-portrait in the article reminds me of when Sister Wendy would talk about how a good portrait not only captures the exterior of a person, but something of their interior life as well.
posted by jabah at 11:26 AM on August 24 [2 favorites]

I visited the exhibition in the National Gallery of Ireland last year and it was wonderful. The centrepiece was the recently restored The Visit of the Queen of Sheba. This has an interesting history as it was saved from a fire in the Palais Royal in Paris 1872 and bought at auction that year by the National Gallery - apparently some of the restoration work was to remove traces of smoke.

Her women and children are sympathetically rendered, while the reproductions don't do justice to her amazing treatment of fabrics - brocades, velvets and lace. (One review I read last year even highlighted her interesting dogs, not just the lapdog spaniels, but the mastiff of the Queen of Sheba painting and a couple of hunting dogs!)
posted by Azara at 11:39 AM on August 24 [3 favorites]

I imagine there's room to quibble about the definition, but I thought Sofonisba Anguissola was the first professional female painter (in Europe, anyway)?
posted by praemunire at 6:24 PM on August 24 [2 favorites]

First and foremost, this is a great article and an introduction to an amazing artist with whom I was not familiar. Thank you!

But regarding the first (known!) professional female painter, Iaia of Cyzicus (c. 116 BCE) has a good claim to that, I think. First known is of course very important because there were almost certainly many professional women painters whose art (or attributions) are lost or at least not well known.
posted by jedicus at 8:00 PM on August 24 [2 favorites]

But regarding the first (known!) professional female painter, Iaia of Cyzicus (c. 116 BCE) has a good claim to that

Yes, that's why I said Europe. But I wouldn't even be sure that there isn't some woman in imperial China whose work was earlier.
posted by praemunire at 10:38 PM on August 24

Those are extraordinary, thank you for sharing!
posted by bq at 8:11 AM on August 26