Catarina van Hemessen (1527–1567)
Born 1527 CE, died 1567 CE.
Caterina or Catharina van Hemessen (1528 – after 1565) was a Flemish Renaissance painter. She is the earliest female Flemish painter for whom there is verifiable extant work. She is mainly known for a series of small-scale portraits of women completed between the late 1540s and early 1550s as well as a few religious compositions. Van Hemessen is often given the distinction of creating the first self-portrait of an artist depicted at an easel. Her self-portrait, created in 1548 at the age of 20, shows the artist holding a maulstick as she starts work on a painting. The image is in the collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel. Other paintings by Van Hemessen are in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and in the National Gallery, London. Few women were able to become professional artists during the early modern period in western art, largely because they were denied access to artistic education, systems of mentorship, and professional organizations.
Text from the Wikipedia article Catharina_van_Hemessen, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.