Portrait of a Young Noblewoman - LAVINIA FONTANA

This detail suggests that the painting was trimmed along the lower edge, probably between the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when it was restored. The compositional cut would therefore have depicted the woman at least down to the knees, giving the figure a more monumental attitude, following the example of traditional Renaissance portraiture, which Lavinia Fontana had learned in the workshop of her father Prospero. 

The painter is celebrated for her execution of portraits, individual or group, in which she adopts a solemn and celebratory style, characterized by Flemish precision in the search for precious detail and by a chromatic brilliance that reveals a complex study of light. As in many female portraits she created, the background is left neutral, allowing greater space for the depiction of inner, psychological and character qualities. 

The clothing reflects the European dominance of Spanish fashion, though interpreted according to the softer Bolognese taste, which tended to soften rigid austerity with refined details, such as the extremely elegant hairstyle adorned with a floral-shaped jewel. 

The painter succeeds in showing what made those garments extremely expensive, namely the complex craftsmanship through the application of frog fastenings for the buttons made of rows of black pearls on black fabric, the golden woven thread for the multicolored sleeves, and the embroidered edge of the starched ruff that embellishes the dress. Many of these details were made with silk, a material for which Bologna enjoyed unparalleled prestige thanks to its dominance in production and trade. Black, moreover, was the fabric that best represented the high status of the portrayed woman: it conveyed a message of luxury carefully controlled in its display by the woman, of decorum and gravitas that reflected the image of the good Christian during the years when Archbishop Gabriele Paleotti governed Bologna.

Her gaze is fixed on the viewer and self-aware, displayed in the full truth of the facial details, including the hairline and the faint moustache above the lips. The portrait is therefore a synthesis of feminine values that, through Lavinia, the noblewomen of the late-century elite sought to display: mothers of families and guardians of the household, but also daughters, wives and mothers of important lay or ecclesiastical members of the local political and religious class. Proud and aristocratic, far from shy but confident in her status, the woman is the mirror of the prestige of the noble house to which she belongs.