Caterina van Hemessen was a Flemish Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

  painter. She is the earliest female Flemish painter for whom there is verifiable extant work, and is known for a series of small scale female portraits completed between the late 1540s and early 1550s.

While not an especially gifted artist, Van Hemessen is often given the distinction of creating the first self-portrait

Self-Portrait (Caterina van Hemessen)

Self-Portrait is a small painting executed in oil on oak in 1548 by the Flemish Renaissance artist Caterina van Hemessen when she was 20 years old. The painting earned her a considerable reputation during her lifetime and is regarded not only for being an early modern female portrait but also as it...

 of an artist (of either gender) depicted seated at an easel. This portrait, created in 1548, shows the artist in the early stages of painting a portrait and now hangs at the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung in Basel. Other paintings by Hemessen are in the Rijksmuseum

Rijksmuseum

The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam or simply Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, located on the Museumplein. The museum is dedicated to arts, crafts, and history. It has a large collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and a substantial collection of Asian art...

 in Amsterdam and in the National Gallery

National gallery

The National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra...

, London.

A number of obstacles stood in the way of contemporary women who wished to become painters. Their training would involve both the dissection of cadavers and the study of the nude male form, while the system of apprenticeship meant that the aspiring artist would need to live with an older artist for 4-5 years, often beginning from the age of 9-15. For these reasons, female artists were extremely rare, and those that did make it through were typically trained by a close relative, in van Hemessen's case, by her father

Jan Sanders van Hemessen

Jan Sanders van Hemessen was a Flemish Northern Renaissance painter. He was born in Hemiksem, then called Hemessen or Heymissen. Following studies in Italy, in 1524 he settled in Antwerp. A mannerist, his images focused on human failings such as greed and vanity...

.

Life

As with many Renaissance female painters, she was the daughter of a painter, Jan Sanders van Hemessen

Jan Sanders van Hemessen

Jan Sanders van Hemessen was a Flemish Northern Renaissance painter. He was born in Hemiksem, then called Hemessen or Heymissen. Following studies in Italy, in 1524 he settled in Antwerp. A mannerist, his images focused on human failings such as greed and vanity...

 (c. 1500-after 1563), who was likely her teacher. She went on to create portraits of wealthy men and women often posed against a dark background. She is best known for a self-portrait

Self-Portrait (Caterina van Hemessen)

Self-Portrait is a small painting executed in oil on oak in 1548 by the Flemish Renaissance artist Caterina van Hemessen when she was 20 years old. The painting earned her a considerable reputation during her lifetime and is regarded not only for being an early modern female portrait but also as it...

 painted in Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

. She inscribed the painting with the year, 1548, and her age, 20 years. Her success is marked by her good standing in the Guild of St. Luke and her eventual position as teacher to three male students.
Van Hemessen gained an important patron in the 1540s, Maria of Austria, who served as regent of the Low Countries

Low Countries

The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

 for her brother Charles V

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...

. In 1554, she married Christian (or Chrétien) de Morien, an organist at the Antwerp Cathedral

Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp

The Cathedral of Our Lady is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Antwerp, Belgium. Today's see of the Diocese of Antwerp was started in 1352 and, although the first stage of construction was ended in 1521, has never been 'completed'. In Gothic style, its architects were Jan and Pieter Appelmans...

, which was at that time an important post. In 1556, when Maria resigned her post and returned to Spain, Caterina and her husband also moved, on invitation of her patron, to Spain. And two years later, when Maria died, Caterina was given a sizeable pension for life. Caterina and her husband returned to Antwerp. She was mentioned in Guicciardini's Description of the Low Countries of 1567 as one of the living women artists. She died after 1587.

She mainly created portraits characterized by realism. The sitters, often seated, were usually seen against a dark or neutral ground. This type of framing and setting made for an intimate portrait. There are no extant works later than 1554, which has led some historians to believe her artistic career might have ended after her marriage.

Selected works

• Portrait of a Lady, 1551, National Gallery, London
• Portrait of a Lady in 16th Century Dress, Bowes Museum
• Young Woman Playing the Virginals
  Virginals
  The virginals or virginal is a keyboard instrument of the harpsichord family...
  
  , 1548, Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum