The challenge between artists is won by Lavinia Fontana: her masterpiece from the Pinacoteca di Bologna will be restored

TheApparition of the Madonna and Child to the Saints Catherine of Alexandria, Margaret, Agnes, Ursula and Barbara, a painting by Lavinia Fontana (Bologna, 1552 - Rome, 1614) preserved at the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna will soon be restored, thanks to the first stage of the 2023 edition of Coop Alleanza 3.0’s “Opera tua” project, in collaboration with Fondaco Italia, which selected this very work for restoration. The restoration will therefore start soon.

Lavinia Fontana’s work received 58 percent of the vote, challenging Lucrina Fetti ’sCoronation of Thorns from the Ducal Palace in Mantua, which received 42 percent of the vote instead. The masterpieces were voted on the Coop Alleanza 3.0 website or via the Coop App from March 8 to April 7, and it was a special edition of the project because it was dedicated to women’s art.

Deposits will then be removed, varnished, cleaned, retouched pictorially, and finally varnished.

“I am very grateful to those who promoted and organized this competition, as well as to all the people who participated,” said Maria Luisa Pacelli, director of the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna. “We are, of course, very happy to be able to restore Lavinia Fontana’s painting in order to re-propose it to the public, once the conservation work has been completed, with in-depth and enhancement activities. I would like to emphasize the importance of initiatives such as this that stimulate and demonstrate the interest of the community in the extraordinary artistic heritage of our country, a fact crucial to its survival and prosperity, in the knowledge that what is preserved in museums is our history and belongs to all citizens.”

The painting depicts the appearance of the Virgin to Saints Catherine of Alexandria, center, Barbara and Ursula on the left, Margaret and Agnes on the right, all recognizable by their respective iconographic attributes. The signature and date 1601, both placed below the figure of Saint Barbara, confirm that this is a work of Lavinia’s artistic maturity, an admirable fusion of the most significant contributions of late 16th-century artistic culture. The colors of Neovenetian ascendancy blend with the supple movements and elongated physiognomies of elegant Parma Mannerism, with the memory of Raphael’s Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia in the Pinacoteca in Bologna, to which the composition refers, and finally with the most up-to-date innovations of the Carracci visible in the optical naturalism of the jewels, the light fabrics, and the dragon accompanying Margaret.

Image: Lavinia Fontana, Apparition of the Madonna and Child to the Saints Catherine of Alexandria, Margaret, Agnes, Ursula and Barbara, detail (1601; oil on canvas; Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale)

The challenge between artists is won by Lavinia Fontana: her masterpiece from the Pinacoteca di Bologna will be restored

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