Buy for little money a portrait in Texas: it was a precious miniature by Lavinia Fontana

A miniature by Lavinia Fontana (Bologna, 1552 - Rome, 1614) has resurfaced after two hundred years of oblivion: credit for the discovery goes to English antiquarian Nick Cox, owner of the Period Portraits gallery, which specializes in antique portraits. Cox had spotted the small work, an oval oil on copper just four inches by five inches, at an auction held in June 2023, in Houston, Texas: the work by Lavinia Fontana, not recognized as such, had been included in a lot with four other 19th-century miniature portraits of mediocre quality, with very low estimates: the range was just $100-200. Cox managed to get the work for an, in hindsight, ridiculous amount (just $850!), had it studied by some experts, and today can present it as a work by Lavinia Fontana, in part because the skillful dealer was able to reconstruct its history.

The identification of the painting was made possible by comparison with a 19th-century drawing: the work, in the 19th century, belonged to Horace Walpole, the great writer who was also a careful and refined art collector. At the time, the work was thought to be by Bronzino and depicted Bianca Cappello, mistress and later wife of Cosimo I de’ Medici. However, we do not know who the woman portrayed by the Bolognese painter actually is, although Walpole was convinced that she was indeed Bianca Cappello: the woman was one of Walpole’s great heroines, and her adventurous life inspired both his Gothic masterpiece, the novel The Castle of Otranto (1764), and his tragedy The Mysterious Mother (1791). Walpole’s fascination with her even led him to coin the term serendipity while researching her account: serendipity, a term commonly used today to refer to the situation in which one has a totally unexpected surprise or an unforeseen positive outcome while one is attending to quite other matters, comes from the fable of the Three Princes of Serendippo by Christopher Armenian, which told the story of three princes from Sri Lanka (formerly “Serendip”) who made discoveries due to chance. Walpole coined the term while writing to his friend Horace Mann to tell him about his fortuitous discovery of two coats of arms related to Bianca Cappello.

The attribution to Lavinia Fontana of the painting found in Texas is the result of work promoted by Cox and came after the pronouncements of Aoife Brady, an Irish scholar, specialist in Bolognese art and curator of Italian and Spanish art at the National Gallery of Ireland, and Maria Teresa Cantaro, author of a monograph on Lavinia Fontana published in 1989: both, after seeing the miniature in person, confirmed the attribution to Lavinia Fontana.

The drawing that allowed the work purchased by Cox to be linked back to Walpole’s collection is by John Carter and is a depiction of a fine sideboard and its contents, including the miniature portrait at the time within an elegant enameled frame. The drawing, now in the Victoria&Albert Museum in London, was later copied by painter George Perfect Harding, who visited Walpole’s collection in the early 19th century: the copy is now in the British Museum. Adriana Cochin Tavella, a scholar and curator at the V&A, traced the history of the miniature and proposed that the exquisitely executed portrait most likely depicts a noblewoman of the Medici court, although her identity remains unconfirmed.

This miniature portrait of Lavinia Fontana shows, according to Cox, fashions consistent with those in vogue at Italian courts in the late sixteenth century. At that time, Italian fashions were heavily influenced by Spain, and the splendor and rigidity of such formal attire echoes the dress worn by the lady, with the upright bearing of the woman dictated by her high-necked gowns. Her garment, resembling a jacket (not unlike a man’s doublet), appears to be made of silver cloth, or perhaps white silk in a shiny satin weave. Strips of gold braid were applied in horizontal bands across the surface of the robe, which would help add structure and stiffen it further, as well as create the required effect of conspicuous consumption since, Aoife Brady explained, “these models knew that the most immediate way to convey their material wealth was through clothing.”

The dress’s high collar (called a “ropa”) is typical of the late sixteenth-early seventeenth century Weaving was used to stiffen and structure this collar, as well as to achieve a showy decorative effect. The shoulder seams are also woven. The applied braids, on the other hand, have serrated edges, and the effect of verticality creates a pleasing contrast with the horizontal band of the bodice. The model’s jewelry is numerous: a gold and pearl hair ornament and a necklace composed of rubies and pearls, with a diamond in the center of the pendant.

Now, after long study, the work goes on display for the first time at Strawberry Hill, the former residence of Horace Walpole, where it came from. “Its return,” the institute says, “marks another triumph in the continuing quest to reunite Walpole’s scattered treasures with their original home.” The exhibition is titled A Serendipitous Return: Lavinia Fontana’s Lost Miniature, and runs from Jan. 25 to March 23, 2025.

Buy for little money a portrait in Texas: it was a precious miniature by Lavinia Fontana

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