Lucia Bonasoni Garzoni

c. 1590

Lavinia Fontana

Associated Names
Lavinia Fontana

Artist, Italian, 1552 - 1614

This painting is a portrait of a seated woman, her body turned slightly to the right and her head looking towards us. She has a fair complexion, with round, rosy cheeks, pale eyebrows, large green eyes, and thin pink lips in a neutral expression. Her light blonde hair is styled in short curls close to her head and adorned with pearls and a clip or barrette in the shape of small leaves. She is dressed in a cream-colored dress with intricate embroidery in shades of brown, gold, and black. On top of the dress is a long black garment that flows over her shoulders and upper arms and has a high collar, decorative buttons, and more embroidery.  Her gown is paired with a ruffled white collar and lace at her neckline and wrists. Long gold chains drape across her chest, and she wears a pearl necklace around her neck and two small golden rings on her fingers. In her left hand, our right, she holds a small book, while a lace handkerchief is in her right hand, our left. She wears pearl earrings, strands of pearl bracelets, and a decorative brooch in the shape of a white dog with a pink bow. The seat she sits on is wooden with dark red cushions decorated with golden tassels and embroidery, behind her on the left is a draped green cloth, and on the right, a table is covered with music sheets, a stringed instrument, books, and small blue and yellow ribbons. The wall behind the table is brown, and there is some gold lettering in the top right corner.

Media Options

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This painting celebrates the talents and intertwined stories of two creative women: its painter Lavinia Fontana and her subject, lute player and singer Lucia Bonasoni Garzoni. Fontana and Garzoni lived in Bologna, Italy, during the second half of the 1500s and were successful artists of their time. They overcame the constraints of a male-dominated society to gain wide acclaim.

Fontana depicts Garzoni in an elegantly detailed gown and delicate jewelry that suggest her high status in Italian society. An upturned lute rests on the table behind her along with a sheet of musical notations for playing the instrument. Fontana’s intimately detailed painting suggests that she held Garzoni in high esteem, as did many others.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery M33


Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Shown from the shins up, two elegantly dressed women and two young boys, all with light skin, sit together on a bench in front of a stone balustrade with a forest landscape beyond in this horizontal portrait painting. The people are brightly lit from our left but the darkened sky suggests dusk. The boys lean onto the woman at the center of the composition, and the second woman sits to her right, our left. All of the people have pale skin, rosy cheeks, delicate noses, and their pink lips all turn up in slight smiles. The woman on our left sits with her body angled toward her friend but she turns her face to look at us with brown eyes under curving brows. Her wavy, flint-gray hair is loosely bound up so it frames the sides of her face and curls over her shoulders. Her swirling, white head covering is edged in gold and tied in a bow over her left ear, on our right. Her long-sleeved dress has a tight-fitting bodice and a low, scooped neckline lined with pleated white fabric. Her dress shimmers from sapphire blue to dusky pink, suggesting it is iridescent taffeta. Large pearls hang off the end of round, gold, hoop earrings, and a glimmering gold sash is tied around her waist. She sits with her left hand resting on her friend’s right shoulder, closer to her, and she gestures toward one of the young boys leaning on the friend’s lap with her other hand. The second woman sits with her body facing us, and she looks off to our left with gray-blue eyes. Her silvery gray, upswept hair is covered with a long piece of white fabric with pink stripes, twisted loosely into a turban-like head covering. She wears dangling gold earrings, and her dress is striped with parchment white and rust red. Her right hand, on our left, rests on her friend’s knee, and her other arm is wrapped around the older boy. He kneels on the bench and leans forward, wrapping the arm we can see around her torso. His face near hers, he looks up at her from under his lashes. A dimple marks the flushed cheek we can see. His chestnut-brown hair falls around his shoulders, and he wears a gingerbread-brown suit. The smaller and younger of the two boys rests his head on his crossed hands on her thigh, and looks out at us. He wears a white garment with a lilac-purple sash tied in a bow around his waist. There is a pale pink rosebush in the lower right corner of the painting, near the kneeling boy’s foot. The landscape beyond the balustrade is filled with dark green trees against a slate-blue sky. The painting is created with blended brushstrokes, giving it a soft look.

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(sale, C. Galardelli, Florence, 11-15 May 1914, third day, 13 May 1914, no. 49). private collection, Madrid; (sale, Subastas Segre, Madrid, 18 May 2021, no. 98); Lullo Pampoulides, London; purchased 24 May 2022 by NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2023

  • Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker, Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, 2023, no. 19, repro.

Bibliography

2021

  • Tanzi, Marco. "La 'gentildonna' e liutista bolognese Lucia Garzoni in un ritratto di Lavinia Fontana." Recercare 33 (2021): 165-180.

2022

  • Straussman-Pflanzer, Eve. "Gifts & Acquisitions." Art for the Nation no. 66 (Fall 2022): 18-19, repro.

2023

  • Puglisi, Catherine. "Lavinia Fonatana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker." Exhibition review. _Woman's Art Journal_44, no. 2 (Fall / Winter 2023): 72.

  • Ramos, E. Carmen. "Collecting for the Nation." Art for the Nation no. 67 (Fall 2023): 10, fig. 11.

Inscriptions

upper right: LUCIA BONAS: AD [A in superscript],GARZONIB / ANNO AETATS [S in superscript] SUE / XXCIII[II]


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