Lavinia Fontana

Lavinia Fontana ran a busy painting studio in Bologna and later Rome around 1600 and supported her large household with her brush, while her husband, a lesser painter, managed the home and the children, of whom she bore 11. That arrangement was almost unheard of for a woman of her time.

Daughter of a painter, she was trained in the family workshop and never treated as an amateur. She built a career on portraits of Bologna's noblewomen, dressed in their finery and jewels, then went on to large public altarpieces, and even to mythological pictures with female nudes, subjects normally closed to women artists.

Her reputation carried her to Rome, where she worked under papal patronage and was honoured by the city's academy. She died there in 1614, and a portrait medal was struck in her honour showing her seated at her easel.