The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm has acquired a previously unknown work by Lavinia Fontana ( Bologna, 1552 – Rome, 1614), considered one of the most successful Italian female artists active between the late 16th and early 17th centuries. It is an altarpiece depicting the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. The work, which has been part of an Italian private collection since the late 19th century, had remained unknown to scholars and the art market until now precisely because of its long stay in private hands. The painting was created in 1607 and stands out for the exceptional quality Fontana achieved at the height of her career, thanks to her complete mastery of form and color. It is an important and rare addition to the artist’s known body of work, as well as one of his most ambitious religious compositions.
The painting is an oil on canvas measuring 158 by 119 centimeters, cataloged under inventory number NM 7736. In the composition, set inside a palace, the Virgin and Child appear in a vision to Saint Catherine of Alexandria, who is being anointed by the infant Jesus. Fontana’s interpretation of this subject—which was very common in the religious art of the time—is devout, intimate, and naturalistic. While the saint’s elegant gown and pose still reflect the sixteenth-century pictorial tradition, the natural expression of the Child is striking, captured in the act of placing the ring on the saint’s finger under his mother’s watchful gaze. The painting is a significant example of the artist’s late style, characterized by harmonious color relationships and soft transitions between light and shadow.
Lavinia Fontana was born in Bologna in 1552 and died in 1614. She is considered one of the first professional female painters of the Italian Renaissance, as well as an internationally renowned pioneer who paved the way for subsequent generations of female artists. The daughter of the painter Prospero Fontana, she was trained directly by her father. In 1577, she married Gian Paolo Zappi, a nobleman and painter, who became her art agent. Fontana is believed to have been the first professional woman to run her own studio, financially supporting her husband and the couple’s eleven children through her work as a painter.
An ambitious artist, Fontana quickly established herself as a highly regarded portraitist in her hometown of Bologna, where she won the favor of university scholars and the local nobility. She also produced numerous small devotional paintings, as well as larger-scale works with mythological subjects and several altarpieces. While her work as a portrait painter reflected a specialization traditionally reserved for female artists of the time, her work as a religious painter was, by contrast, entirely unprecedented for a woman—particularly given the large number of public commissions she received for large-scale altarpieces. Around 1590, Fontana received her first papal commission, and in 1603 she moved her family to Rome in search of new professional opportunities, becoming one of the first women admitted to the prestigious Academy of Saint Luke.
The acquisition of the work, made possible by a donation from the Sophia Giesecke Fund, is part of the Nationalmuseum’s strategy to enrich its collections with works by women artists, and joins the works by Sofonisba Anguissola and Artemisia Gentileschi acquired by the museum in recent years. The painting will be on public view in the museum’s galleries starting September 1.
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| The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm Acquires a Previously Unseen Work by Lavinia Fontana |
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