French museum uncovers picture by female Renaissance master

A provincial museum in northern France last week showed off a picture now attributed to one of the greatest women painters of the Italian Renaissance, Lavinia Fontana, but which had for decades languished in its storage.

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The picture — Portrait Of A Gentleman, His Daughter And A Servant — will now be a centrepiece of the collection at the Musée de la Chartreuse in Douai, northern France.

Lavinia Fontana, who lived from 1552-1614, is seen as one of the very first women to make a career out of painting in Western art, and an outstanding representative of the Italian Renaissance style in her own right.

The picture shows three figures from a well-to-do family, shown dressed in the fashion of the time which is painted in intricate detail.