Narrator: Bianca Maselli was a noblewoman living in Rome in 1604, when this extraordinary portrait was painted. Chief Curator Emily Beeny: 

Emily Beeny: And she's portrayed with six of her nineteen children, at the age of probably about thirty-six or thirty-seven. We don't know the names of all of the children represented, though we do know the name of the little toddler who clings to her mother's index finger and then holds the puppy's paw very tenderly - that's Virginia Maselli. 

Narrator: These may be the only six of Bianca’s nineteen children to survive at this point. 

Emily Beeny: My favorite passage in the picture is the three little boys at right, who really seem to be up to something!

Narrator: One holds a quill pen and inkwell – perhaps indicating his studious nature. And the little dog symbolizes faithfulness.  

Emily Beeny: Many women wished to have a portraitist underscore the virtue of fidelity as chief among their wifely achievements. 

Narrator: The portrait is by Lavinia Fontana, who, like most women artists at this time, trained in her father’s studio. 

Emily Beeny: She's especially good at portraying rich sumptuous textiles, as you can see here in all that amazing sort of velvet, brocade and silk and handmade lace, and also very good at jewelry.  

Narrator: Fontana built a successful career while raising eleven children, partly because her husband gave up his own artistic practice to help run her studio. 

Emily Beeny: Their marriage contract stipulates that her artistic career is to continue after their wedding and that she is going to be exempted from normal household duties in order to pursue her art. It's vanishingly rare, breathtakingly rare, but one understands how essential it was to get that down in writing, in order to secure what was at that time a really unusual privilege for a woman.