An oil on copper miniature newly attributed to one of the most significant women artists of the Renaissance, Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614) will be going on display at its former home, Strawberry Hill House, where it is now on long-term loan. It will have its own exhibition, A Serendipitous Return: Lavinia Fontana’s Lost Miniature, which will be open until 23 April 2025.

The miniature appeared last year in an auction in Texas as an unattributed work, sold as part of a group. Nick Cox, the founder of the art dealership Period Portraits, spotted the miniature and thought it might be by Fontana, particularly as the detailed costume of the female sitter is very similar to a well-known Fontana large-scale painting, The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon. Cox bought the miniature and took it to the National Gallery of Ireland, where curator Aoife Brady – who in 2023 organised a major exhibition of Fontana’s work – studied the work. Brady said, “upon receiving photographs of the painting, I immediately recognised a number of characteristics associated with Fontana’s portraiture, in the style of the figure’s face, and her clothing and accessories (including the ornate sprig-like hairpin decorated with pearls, that appears in so many of her portraits of women). I was able to confirm my views [when examining] the work in person: the brushstroke is consistent with her manner in painting miniatures on copper, using tiny parallel strokes to model flesh tones, and heavy, skilfully applied impasto to imitate the texture of lace and embroidery.”

Cox then took the miniature to the Victoria & Albert Museum, where another exciting discovery was made. Curator Adriana Conchin-Tavella traced the provenance of the miniature to the collection of Horace Walpole (1717-97), an art historian and collector who formed an important art collection at Strawberry Hill House. Walpole believed the miniature to be by Italian artist Bronzino (1503-72), and thought the sitter was Bianca Capello, the Grand Duchess consort of Tuscany and wife to Francesco I de’ Medici. While this identification of the sitter cannot be confirmed, Brady suggests that Capello is a plausible suggestion: “the blue background is unusual within Fontana’s oeuvre and from the time that I saw it, suggested a Florentine link. This, teamed with Dr Adriana Conchin’s discovery regarding the Walpole provenance and the traditional identification of the sitter as Bianca Capello, strengthened the argument… and suggested that this may be a noblewoman from the Medici court.”

Nick Cox hopes to find an institutional buyer for the miniature and Silvia Davoli, director of Strawberry Hill House, would certainly be keen to acquire it: “Usually I’m more keen on furniture and bigger paintings, but in this particular case, the object is really charged with an important narrative event, and it can help us visualise aspects of Walpole’s collecting and taste and interests, which are important to the story of Strawberry Hill.”