(Bologna 1552–1614 Rome)
Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well,
oil on canvas, 182 x 123 cm, unframed

Provenance:
probably collection of Giuseppe Pignatelli, Rome, 1647;
probably thence by descent to his son Stefano Pignatelli;
Private collection, Turin;
with Costantino Deligios, Sassari, until 1994;
Private European collection

Documentation:
probably the painting mentioned in the post-mortem inventory of Giuseppe Pignatelli, 19 May 1647, Archivio di Stato, Rome, 30 Notai Capitolini, Leonardus Bonannus, vol. 165, f. 283, f. 283v: ‘Nella sala […] 3. Un’altro con una Sammaritana con cornice negra di Lavinia Fontana alto palmi…largo…’ (see L. Spezzaferro/A. Giammaria (eds.), Archivio del Collezionismo Romano, Pisa 2009, p. 441, n. 0004).

We are grateful to Maria Teresa Cantaro for confirming the attribution after the examination of the present painting in the original and for her help in cataloguing this lot. She dates the present painting to 1607.

In an inventory of 19 May 1647 of Giuseppe Pignatelli’s residence, located in the rione Pigna in Rome, there was a painting (dimensions unknown) representing Christ and the Samaritan woman by Lavinia Fontana. This inventory, which cites the painting as located in the ‘sala’ of the house, was a list of the items inherited by Giuseppe’s son, the thirteen-year-old Roman nobleman Stefano Pignatelli. Neither the dimensions nor the earlier provenance of this Samaritan are known, conversly the other version of the same subject by Lavinia Fontana conserved in the Galleria Nazionale di Capodimonte (inv. 84084, inv. IC 182), was acquired in 1779 by King Ferdinando di Borbone. Maria Teresa Cantaro remains uncertain as to which of the two painting is the prototype, despite the present work being the larger, and she suggest that the present is the painting that was once in the collection of Giuseppe Pignatelli in Rome.

The artist’s attention is especially elevated in details including the knot of her dress at her breast, and in the veiled play of the layering of her organza undershirt and her brilliant gold gown. The jewel she wears in her hair, elaborately made up with ribbons and veils, was likely a real gem that was reproduced at the behest of the patron. The copper water vessel and the falling rope almost create the effect of a trompe l’oeil. These details create a markedly secular feel to the depiction of this episode from the Gospel: the pursuit of naturalism, free of sacred overtones, makes its use for a religious setting doubtful. This suggests that the painting was made for a patron that intended to display it in a private house, in just such a setting as described in the inventory of Giuseppe Pignatelli, where it was in the ‘sala’ or principal salon.

Lavinia Fontana studied first with her father, the Mannerist painter Prospero Fontana. By the late 1570s her works were already admired in Bologna for the vibrant colour and the details of the clothes and jewels. In Rome she enjoyed the patronage of the family of Pope Gregorio XIII (1502-1585) and she was one of the first women to execute large and pubicly commissioned figure paintings. She achieved the reputation of a successful portrait painter, for both the eminent members of the clergy or the Roman noble women, who were portrayed by Lavinia in the guise of biblical or mythological heroins, such as the Portrait of Isabella Ruini as Venus in the the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen (inv. no. D.874.15),