Modena, Carlo Sigonio's portrait of Lavinia Fontana from Bologna is now exhibited in the National Gallery of Ireland

Modena, Carlo Sigonio's portrait of Lavinia Fontana from Bologna is now exhibited in the National Gallery of Ireland.

The portrait of the Modenese scholar Carlo Sigonio, an important painting in the Civic Museum of Modena executed in 1578 by Lavinia Fontana, is exhibited in Dublin, at the National Gallery of Ireland in the exhibition dedicated to the painter and entitled “Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker”, in Italian “A pioneer who breaks the rules” which hosts works from the major Italian and international museums including the Uffizi, the National Art Gallery of Bologna, the Spada Gallery in Rome, the British Museum, the Louvre. The title of the exhibition, curated by Aoife Brady and open until 28 August, highlights the extraordinary ability of the Bolognese artist to build an international career, thus paving the way for other female painters in an era in which the world of art was dominated by men.

Lavinia Fontana, born in Bologna in 1552, was a daughter of art and her father Prospero, an established painter and man of culture, was also her first teacher. In fact, until more than half of the nineteenth century, women were not allowed to attend workshops, schools or art academies. Her marriage to the mediocre painter Paolo Zappi, celebrated in 1577, did not interrupt her career also because her father had had the foresight to specify in the marriage contract that it was the husband's duty to take care of the earnings that his wife had obtained as a "painter". ”. In fact, Zappi became the agent of Lavinia who at the end of the XNUMXs was an established portrait artist who mainly painted portraits of Bolognese notables: being portrayed by the "painter" had become almost a fashion for established noblewomen and men of culture like, indeed, Carlo Sigonio who was portrayed after moving to Bologna to take up the chair of Eloquence in the studio. In the painting the painter records with meticulous attention the objects that symbolize the role of the university professor: the dress, the fur-lined cloak, the collar and cuffs, the tools of intellectual work, the books, the letter opener, the inkwell, the glasses , the folded ticket with the writing "Al Very Mag.co et Ecel.te mio il S.or Carolo Sigonio, Bologna", placed on the table.

In 1583, Lavinia Fontana received her first public commission: an altarpiece for the cathedral of Imola, the first work with a religious subject and intended for a church painted by a woman. In the same period the family decided to move to Rome where the artist enjoyed a particularly brilliant period and where he died in 1614 after an extraordinary career, as demonstrated by the large quantity of surviving works, planned and pursued in a tireless and tenacious way, maintaining a very high volume of work despite the eleven pregnancies completed.