Lace, Lapdogs & Legacy: Lavinia Fontana

Silk. Status. Jewelled lapdogs.
Bologna’s most fashionable women shimmer through her canvases.

But Lavinia Fontana’s world was far larger. Her work reveals an artist of extraordinary range and ambition — from monumental altarpieces to classical nudes and even the astonishing portrait of a young girl covered entirely in hair.

At home, she was a mother of eleven. On the streets of Bologna, she was a celebrity, sought after by the city’s elite. She directed a thriving workshop — negotiating contracts, securing major ecclesiastical commissions and building a formidable career.

This talk explores how Lavinia Fontana fused spectacle, strategy and relentless ambition to secure a legacy few women of the Renaissance were permitted to claim.