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, not surprisingly, women artists.

1. Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614)
Portrait of Antonietta Gonzalez
Oil on canvas - 54.5 x 47 cm
Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art
Photo: Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art

See the image in its page

The history of the work, as specified by the auction house, dates back to the 20th century; no information on its previous ownership is known to date. Mention is made of the collection of the French doctor and psychiatrist Edgar Bérillon, who bought the painting in London from the dealers and framers M. &. B. Bartington, as one of their labels on the back of the frame seems to indicate. In 1905, Edgar Bérillon published a "Étude psychologique et sociologique sur les femmes à barbe" in the Revue de psychothérapie et de psychologie appliquée. Although the essay is richly illustrated, the Portrait of Antonietta Gonzales does not appear. It is therefore possible that he bought it after 1905, motivated by the subject of his scientific research. The painting remained with the psychiatrist’s descendants until it was offered for sale on the Touraine art market in June 2023.

2. Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614)
Portrait…