Self-Portrait is a small painting executed in oil on oak in 1548 by the Flemish

Flemish

Flemish can refer to anything related to Flanders, and may refer directly to the following articles:*Flemish, an informal, though linguistically incorrect, name of any kind of the Dutch language as spoken in Belgium....

 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...

 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 shows an artist in the act of painting. This was very unusual for the time; although self-portraits were common, even those, as with Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...

 (1471–1528) which showed the artist's social position and everyday life, were rare. Artists of the time rarely directly referred to, much less showed the tools of their profession. Hemessen's portrait is one of the earliest in the Northern European tradition to show a painter not only with a brush but also a palette and easel. She inscribed it with the words: "I Caterina van Hemessen have painted myself / 1548 / Her aged 20".

Hemessen is shown at half length and holding a brush, looking outwards as if at her own image as she records it on the oak panel in front of her. She has only begun work on the painting she is shown working on, no background has been put down, and only a sketch of her head can be seen. Her face is painted with soft brush-strokes, while the textures of her gown are distinguished using a wider varieety of brushmarks.

In the main image, Hemessen has shown herself elegantly clothed in a black brocade

Brocade

Brocade is a class of richly decorative shuttle-woven fabrics, often made in colored silks and with or without gold and silver threads. The name, related to the same root as the word "broccoli," comes from Italian broccato meaning "embossed cloth," originally past participle of the verb broccare...

 dress and red velvet sleeves. While such an outfit would have been impractical wear for an artist working with oils and brushes, her clothes are intended to indicate her social rank and attribute personal dignity. Her arms are outsized in proportion to the rest of her body.
There are a number of deliberate contradictions and explorations of mirror images at play. Hemessen holds the brush with her right hand; she would have corrected the reversal on the reflected image. Her head as shown on the panel is undersized and situated on the top left; that is opposite to the position her head appears on the actual painting. Her head is turned in the direction of the viewer but her eyes do not meet the viewer's. Typical of her work, the background is plain and dark, and gives no indication of the space occupied by the sitter.

A number of obstacles stood in the way of contemporary women who wished to become painters. Chief amongst these was the fact that their training would involve both the dissection of cadavers and the study of the nude male form. In addition, 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...

.

Attribution

Occasional doubt has been raised as to the authenticity and provenance of the work. Some have speculated that it was created by her father 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...

 (1500–c 1566); he tended to portray women with the same large round, dark, eyes and reduced chin. However these theories are not given much weight by art historians, and the prominence of the signature is taken as evidence of Caterina's intention to mark the work as by her own hand. A c 1548 portrait by Caterina in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 showing a woman at a virginal identified as 22 years old, has the same dimensions as this work and contains an almost identical face; likely it was either intended as a companion piece to this self-portrait, or was a depiction of her sister Christina, who was two years older.

Sources

• Jones, Susan Frances. Van Eyck to Gossaert. London: National Gallery, 2011. ISBN 978-1-85709-504-3
• Kemperdick, Stephan. The Early Portrait, from the Collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein and the Kunstmuseum Basel. Munich: Prestel, 2006. ISBN 3-7913-3598-7
• Kleiner, Fred. Gardner's Art Through the Ages. Wadsworth, 2009. ISBN 0-4955-7364-7