Artist
Lavinia Fontana
Italian, 1552–1614
Lavinia Fontana was an Italian Early Baroque Italian painter. 19 works are cataloged here, principally at Galleria Borghese, most of them oil paintings. Lavinia Fontana was born in Bologna.
Lavinia Fontana (24 August 1552 – 11 August 1614) was an Italian Mannerist painter active in Bologna and Rome. She is best known for her successful portraiture, but also worked in the genres of mythology and religious painting. She was trained by her father, Prospero Fontana.
She is regarded as the first female career artist in Western Europe, as she relied on commissions for her income. Her family relied on her career as a painter, and her husband served as her agent and raised their 11 children. She was perhaps the first female artist to paint female nudes, but this is a topic of controversy among art historians.
Works by Lavinia Fontana
Collections represented
Artists in a similar vein
