She is best known for her successful portraiture, but also worked in the genres of mythology and religious painting. She was trained by her father, Prospero Fontana. She is regarded as the first female career artist in Western Europe, as she relied on commissions for her income.
She was baptized on 24 August , at the cathedral of San Pietro. Prospero was a prominent painter of the School of Bologna and served as her teacher. Caroline P. Murphy suspects that financial issues may have prompted Prospero to train Lavinia as a painter. Her earliest known work, Child of the Monkey , was painted in at the age of Though this work is now lost, another early painting, Christ with the Symbols of the Passion , painted in , is now in the El Paso Museum of Art.
Unusual for the time, their marriage contract specified that she would continue her career and would not be responsible for housekeeping. Fontana attended classes at the University of Bologna , and was listed as one of the city's Donne addottrinate women with doctorates in In the s, she gained renown as a portraitist of Bolognese noblewomen, who competed for her services.
The high demand for portraits painted by Fontana was reflected in the large sums of money she earned during this period. She was subsequently appointed as Portraitist in Ordinary at the Vatican. Along with portraits, Fontana created a substantial number of extensive altar pieces, and it is believed that she may be one of the first female painters to have done this. Fontana also produced paintings on mythological allegorical themes, sometimes "highly sensuous paintings with female nude figuresβan unheard-of and risky venture which to date no female artist had permitted herself to attempt.
Her last painting, Minerva Dressing , was a true masterpiece. She was the first female elected into the Accademia di San Luca of Rome, [ 26 ] and was the recipient of numerous honors, [ 2 ] including a bronze portrait medallion cast in by sculptor and architect Felice Antonio Casoni. He also posits that this is the first visual rendition of Cesare Ripa 's description of Pittura.
