Lavinia Fontana

An extraordinary recent discovery, hitherto unknown to scholars until now, this painting of “Christ Driving the Traders from the Temple” adds a new piece to the exploration of Lavinia Fontana’s remarkable career. Signed and dated 1580 in Roman characters on the overturned footstool of one of the money changers in the foreground, the work can be considered as one of the most ambitious achievements of the Bolognese painter’s youth, completed when she was not yet thirty. In this painting, as is highlighted in the accompanying catalogue, Lavinia is not afraid to quote from and thereby compare herself to the most celebrated artist of her time, Michelangelo, who had tackled the same theme in a series of drawings executed around 1540, and the dynamic poses and complicated foreshortening attest strongly to this. This clear reference to Michelangelo remains unique in Lavinia’s practice, since in this same period she primarily took her influence from the compositions and styles of Correggio and Raphael.
The recent cleaning has revealed the full chromatic range of bright and vivid tones, from the contrasting brilliant blue and iridescent pink of Jesus’ robe and cloak to the pistachio green of the money changer on the right, colours that testify to how Lavinia carefully monitored the artistic trends of nearby Florence.