(Bologna 1552–1614 Rome)
Portrait of a Lady wearing a ruff, holding a book in her left hand,
oil on canvas, 75.5 x 62 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Phillips, London, 26 April 1988, lot 29 (as Attributed to Lavinia Fontana);
sale, Cambi, Genoa, 13 June 2017, lot 75 (as Lavinia Fontana)

Literature:
M. T. Cantaro, Lavinia Fontana bolognese “pittora singolare”, Milan 1989,
p. 183, no. 4a. 81

We are grateful to Maria Teresa Cantaro for reconfirming the attribution after examination of the present painting in the original.

This painting represents an elegantly dressed noble woman in richly embroidered clothes and a broad ruff. The lady’s features are close to the portrait type employed by Lavinia Fontana during the latter half of 1590s. Portraits of this period by the Bolognese painter are characterised by a greater attention to detail, more mature and incisive psychological description and greater compositional movement, as is evident in the present painting.

In particular this painting can be compared to other portraits by Lavinia Fontana from the end of the century, such as the Portrait of Costanza Alidosi in the National Gallery of Women in the Arts, Washington, and the Portrait of Ginevra Aldrovandi Hercolani in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. The present portrait and that in Baltimore show the same arrangement of the pearl earrings worn by the woman, a refined feature that reoccurs in other works by the artist such as the Venus and Cupid in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, of 1592.