FONTANA, Lavinia
(b. 1552, Bologna, d. 1614, Roma)

Portrait of a Girl

1580-83
Oil on metal, diameter 10 cm
Private collection

As a pupil of his father, Lavinia Fontana produced religious compositions, but by the late 1570s she had become established as a portrait painter and it is this genre for which she is most famous today. This small tondo represents a girl, in a pink embroidered dress, wearing a coral necklace. It is an example of the paintings of children at which she, a mother of eleven, excelled.