Lavinia Fontana
Today, we move to beautiful Krakow, where a new European Art Gallery has been opened in the National Museum in Krakow. It presents selected examples of the most interesting and finest European paintings and sculptures from the museum's collection, including today's work attributed to Lavinia Fontana. Enjoy!
Lavinia Fontana, a painter active in Bologna and Rome, was the first woman artist to gain widespread recognition both in Italy and abroad. She painted religious scenes, yet the most interesting portion of her oeuvre are portraits. This painting is a combination of a depiction of a Biblical heroine with the painter’s self-portrait. The Old Testament Judith saved her native city from destruction by the Assyrian army by killing their general, Holofernes, and it was not by accident that this subject—showcasing women’s initiative, agency, as well as revenge understood as opposition against violence—was employed multiple times by women artists. The picture was painted on an inverted, unfinished portrait of a veiled woman. Such reuse of an incomplete composition is not unusual in the creative process of early modern era painters.
P.S. Read more about the groundbreaking career of Lavinia Fontana!
P.P.S. Discover more innovative women like Lavinia Fontana in our Women Artists 50 Postcards Set. They're perfect for sharing or collecting. :)