This week on the Persephone Post: five women artists of whom we had never heard, all of whom were obviously first class. So why oh why were they forgotten? Well we think we all know the answer. This is by the Italian Renaissance artist Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614). She was hugely encouraged by her father and was then the main breadwinner for a family of thirteen, she and her husband, who was her manager, having eleven children. And she painted more than a hundred paintings. Surely Salley Vickers or Sarah Dunant or Tracy Chevalier are even now plotting a novel about her? This is Family Portrait, but whose family we do not know.