Like most female artists in late-16th-century Italy, Lavinia Fontana was born and raised in a major art center (Bologna) and was related to a successful male artist (her father, Prospero Fontana). However, she was unusual in that she was commissioned to make not only portraits, which were the typical subject matter for women painters, but also religious and mythological themes, which sometimes included female nudes. Fontana also made great strides in the field of portraiture, for which she was justly famous, both within and beyond Italy. In fact, Fontana is regarded as the first woman in Western Europe to develop a professional career as an artist, working within the same sphere as her male counterparts, outside a court or convent.

At the age of 25 Fontana married Gian Paolo Zappi, a fellow painter from a noble family, who acted as his wife's assistant and managed their growing household (the couple had 11 children, only three of whom outlived their mother). For 20 years beginning in the 1580s, Fontana was the portraitist of choice among Bolognese noblewomen. She also painted likenesses of important individuals connected with the University of Bologna.

Because of the popularity of her portraits and a number of prestigious commissions to create large altarpieces, Fontana's fame spread to Rome, where she moved in 1604. There she became a portraitist at the court of Pope Paul V and was the recipient of numerous honors, including a bronze portrait medallion cast in 1611 by the sculptor and architect Felice Antonio Casoni.