An exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland, “Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker” (on view through August 27th), highlights the groundbreaking achievements of a lesser-known, late Cinquecento painter from Bologna. To be certain, Fontana was an exception to the socio-political position afforded to women at the time. The word “exception” has both negative and positive connotations. Read as “exception,” the artist is in contrast to the rule—a woman working beyond the restrictions of her sex. Read as “exceptional,” we associate the talent with being unusual or rare—a comment upon skill. Lavinia Fontana was no mere “exception”; she was an “exceptional” artist. As NGI curator Aoife Brady argues, she was not simply an artist “prevailing” beyond her sex but rather one of “prodigious skill in painting” that begs (re)consideration.
Much of the previous scholarship on Fontana has focused on her biography, understanding her work as an achievement that resulted from her specific circumstances. Born in 1552 in Bologna, she was the daughter of Prospero Fontana (1512-1597), who was known for large-scale fresco commissions and a series of portraits of Pope Julius III from the 1550s. (Prospero Fontana, a Antonia de Bonardis, had connections to the city’s printing industry, and her family ran one of the largest publishing houses in Bologna. In short, Lavinia Fontana’s upbringing provided clear connections to the city’s intelligentsia and the art world.
