Portrait of Antonietta Gonzales
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| Portrait of Antonietta Gonzales | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Lavinia Fontana |
| Year | 1595 |
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Location | Château of Blois, Blois |
The Portrait of Antonietta Gonzales is a portrait by one of the most important Italian Renaissance women artists, Lavinia Fontana. The portrait is oil on canvas and depicts a girl with hypertrichosis named Antonietta Gonsalvus (also known as Tognina Gonsalvus), daughter of Petrus Gonsalvus.[1][2] Antonietta is dressed in finery to show her noble status, but as someone who would have been ostracized because of her unusual appearance, she would have been seen as more animal than human and would not have had the same freedoms as other courtiers.
Until 1990 the painting was credited as the work of a follower of Veronese.[3] It was attributed to Lavinia Fontana due to her connection to the philosopher Ulisse Aldrovandi and another sketch she had drawn of a girl with hypertrichosis.[3] The painting is now in the collection of the Château of Blois.[4]
The portrait depicts Antonietta Gonzales (nicknamed Tognina)[5] from the front, her face covered in brown hair due to her hypertrichosis. She is posed like any other portrait of a noble girl would have been despite her condition.[6] Antonietta is dressed in a fine courtly dress decorated with gold, red, and blue embroidered designs and lined with a row of three golden buttons down her front. She is wearing a high collar with lace details that match the lace on the cuffs of her sleeves. Her countenance conveys a small smile and bright eyes in order to convey her humanity rather than focus on her otherness.[7] This individuality regardless of difference was common in Fontana’s paintings.[8] Clutched between her hands is a letter, which indicates the girl's literacy.[9] The letter, which establishes her noble birth but does not explicitly title her a courtier,[10] is positioned so that the viewer may read the biographical information written down:
"Don Pietro, a wild man discovered in the Canary Islands, was conveyed to his most Serene highness Henry, the King of France, and from there came to his Excellency the Duke of Parma. From whom came I, Antoinetta, and now I can be found nearby at the court of the Lady Isabella Pallavincina, the honorable marchesa of Soragna.”[11]
Adorning Antonietta's hair are two sets of flowers. The first, resting behind her right ear, is a Lily of the Valley,[12] which symbolized positive traits such as elegance and humility.[13] Additionally, its white color symbolized purity and its downward facing position symbolized humility.[14] However, it also symbolized the more negative characteristics people with hypertrichosis would have been viewed as, such as having a wild and primitive nature, as the flower could grow in the wild without human care.[13] The second set of flowers that compose the crown on her head are snowdrops, clover, and a carnation.[15] This flower crown is meant to be seen as civil and elegant but each of the flowers chosen in the portrait are all flowers that grow commonly in the wild.[15] This depiction further emphasizes the child's dual nature of civil and wild.[15]