Tokyo acquires a portrait by Lavinia Fontana

9/1/24 - Acquisitions - Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art - A record-breaking million-dollar auction at Rouillac in June 2023, the previously unseen portrait of Antonietta Gonzales by Lavinia Fontana (ill. 1) was the talk of the town. Previously known through the version conserved by the Château de Blois (ill. 12), it had been discovered a few months earlier in a private collection in Burgundy and had benefited from the expertise of the Turquin firm. Exhibited by the Geneva gallery Rob Smeets at Tefaf 2024, it was finally acquired by the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, which unveiled the exhibition last September as a new masterpiece in its collection of European art from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, which is regularly augmented by major names, including,…