Francesco da Sangallo once said, “… you must know how many women there are in Flanders and in France and even in Italy who paint in such a way that in Italy their pictures are held in high esteem…” He was not wrong, as hundreds and thousands of women artists were simply outstanding in their works, but they got neglected because there was only limited documentation and sufficient works available on them. And among them, the most ignored ones were first women artists. We know that there were many women artists in the early Renaissance, but the earliest to get recorded in the artistic world was Catharina Van Hemessen from 1548 and Sofonisba Anguissola from 1554. However, neither of them were the first women artists recorded in the documents nor the first ones for whom any works of art have survived as we have few records of the early artists, but the amount of evidence available for them before the mid-sixteenth century was scanty and thus hard to evaluate. The question is how come did women artists not reach a historical status earlier despite their best efforts and excellent craftsmanship. Well, there were many factors, which I have explained in many introductions before in different articles. If we talk about the social status of women, you will understand a little more basics on the women artists. Historians have noticed that these changes, which included their tougher lifestyle to support their family and excessive domestic service and nursing, the women, in general, were filled with a greater variety of professional roles, had more responsibility, and made a significant contribution to the economy. Honestly, I think there is much more to learn about the social strata of women as it literally shaped the innovations, society, and other changes of the time. I might write an article on it if the demand persists, but for now, let us learn about the official first women portrait artist, Caterina, for which we are here.
Caterina van Hemessen | Fast Knowledge
Caterina (also Catharina) van Hemessen is a Flemish painter who was the first portrait women artist recorded from the Northern Renaissance. Being a highly successful painter, Van Hemessen had Queen Mary of Hungary as her principal patron, but her career ended after marriage.
Artist’s Abstract: Caterina van Hemessen.
Catharina van Hemessen is one of the first Flemish women artists recorded and the first for whom several certainly authentic works are known. Been the daughter of a painter, Jan van Hemessen, who presumably taught her, she might have been born in 1528, traced from her inscription from portraiture of 1548 when she was twenty. Six years later, she married Chretien de Morien, a musician. Following this, both of them were invited to join the Spanish court established by Mary of Hungary after she abdicated her regency of the Netherlands in 1556. After the death of Mary of Hungary in 1558, she left a generous pension to the couple. In the book Descrittione dei Paesi Bassi (Description of the Low Countries), first published in 1567, Guicciardini wrote that Caterina was one of the women artists. There are ten signed and dated works known to us by Caterina. Among them, most of them were small women’s portraits though she signed two religious pictures. She painted between 1548 and 1552, which suggests that her artistic career may have ended with her marriage. We will learn more about her in the following sections of the article.
| Artist | Caterina van Hemessen or Catharina van Hemessen |
| Birth | 1528 |
| Death | 1587 (Antwerp) |
| Nationality | Flemish |
| Genre | Portraiture |
| Period | Northern Renaissance |
| Famous Painting | Self Portrait (Van Hemessen) |
Looking at the Life of the Artist.
A lesser is known about the sixteenth-century women artists who worked in Northern Europe than their Italian counterparts. But there is some source of information on the flemish painter Caterina van Hemessen.
Caterina’s father, Jan Sanders, was a well-known Mannerist painter from Antwerp and presumably her teacher. Though she produced two religious paintings, Caterina was basically a portraitist. Jan usually added the liveliest exponents of the flemish mannerism in his artworks, whereas his daughter used a quiet style in realism, untouched by the foreign influences that affected him so strongly.
There is not much written about the artist’s life, which is why we will trace her life through the paintings she worked on. However, it is known that she enjoyed the Royal Patronage of Queen Mary of Hungary, who governed and controlled very much of Europe on behalf of her brother, Spanish King Charles I. Hence, there is a possibility that she might have painted for her and those paintings are in the inventory of this period, but since they didn’t specify the artist’s names, we can’t trace more of these works and activities in Spain.
Painting Technique of Catharina van Hemessen.
The portraiture of Caterina van Hemessen was majorly simple, which doesn’t include any landscape views, elaborately described rooms, or even a shadow cast on the wall behind the sitter to suggest a surrounding space. There were two portraits- a self-portrait and a portrait of her sister at the Virginals, which shows a little indication of the setting, but even in these two works, there is a little bit of use of furniture to imply space around the figures for the backgrounds. Among her best portraits, she used an appealing intimacy while describing their sitters’ features with great sympathy, but they do have an anatomical weakness like she never mastered her hands.
Now that she painted only in her mid-twenties, she never reached artistic maturity, but her works are still charming.
There is a strong characterization in the portraits of Catharina van Hemessen. There is an undeniably impressive male portrait from 1552 in The National Gallery’s reserve collection (in the basement), and a female portrait that is physically smaller, but is certainly a substantial work. The red sleeves and the sad, wan face are distinctively highlighted. In one of the other pairs of portraits, which resides in the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, the artist shows a fine line of light catching on the edge of the sitter’s clothing which distinguishes them from the background. It simply tells that Caterina van Hemessen had a knowledge of light and shadows and when it comes to her sitters, she perfectly immaculate this feature in her portraits.
Catharina Van Hemessen’s Paintings.
1. Self Portrait.
Signed as ‘Ego Caterina de Hemessen me pinxi 1548,’ this painting resides in the Kunstmuseum Basel Museum. With an easel at her side and brushes and a palette in her left hand, she poses at work sketching a head onto a small wooden panel, indicating her age as “20”. It is fascinating to observe the artist’s technique in this self-portrait, using a Mahl painting stick to steady her hand and defining the facial features scrupulously rather than beginning with the composition, as a whole. This artist wears a high-necked black dress with red velvet sleeves, a lace collar and cuffs, and an elegant white coif over her brown hair, which is appropriately dressed for the cold northern climate. Despite the intense expression on her face, she seems to be serious about the craft of painting. With a stark background with muted colors, the artist used her artistic knowledge to appeal to her contemporary patrons. Despite the fact that her hands aren’t perfect anatomically, she has given herself very good facial features.
2. Young Woman Playing the Virginals.
From the same year 1548, when she painted her self-portrait, Caterina painted another painting, which writers thought to be her self-portrait for many years. This painting, residing in the Cologne Museum, shows a young girl playing a spinet. Aged as ’22’, this panel shows the subject having a resemblance with the artist when it comes to her dress and facial resemblance, which might be the reason, why the writers thought it to be a self-portrait. The sitter has large eyes with a moon-shaped face and eyebrows evenly defined, but her eyes seem to be a little sorrowful. It may be possible that the sitter of this painting might be the artist’s older sister, Christina, who was the first-born daughter of Jan Sanders van Hemessen. The resemblance of the sitter’s face with the artist’s might be because of the family likeness.
3. The Rest on the Flight to Egypt.
Catharina van Hemessen painted this religious painting in 1555, which is an adorable large artwork. Her painting resembles a closer style to her father’s compositions, like Holy Family (Stockholm), with few powerful figures dominating a detailed landscape. There is a use of stark contrasts and a dominating color scheme in the composition, with a detailed landscape in the background. Portraying the lady with a chubby blushing face, and curly-straight hair, Caterina adds a warmth of motherhood in the facial expressions of the lady with a muscular baby.
4. Portrait of a Woman.
The artist shows a firmly dated and signed portrait with a slim-waisted, somber-eyes figure against the dark and neutral background. Evidently wealthy, the sitter ornaments with black embroidery with the bodice of her dress corded and watered silk. Wearing red velvet sleeves with a damask skirt, she holds whitish leather gloves and a small dog sits with its collar on the left of her arm. The portrait of women with pet animals was quite common in sixteenth-century portraits, which is why Caterina van Hemessen might have chosen the subject.
On the woman’s left sleeve, the cuff is painted over a large reserve, while on the right sleeve, a large reserve covers the dog’s head. A pink-basic flesh color covers the bluish whites of the woman’s eyes. Mostly, the reds in the flesh are the result of red lake; some areas of vermilion may be retouched, but others, like the dog’s ear and the sitter’s lower lip, are clearly original. This painting has a similar style and technique to the other painting, Portrait of a Man. As a final point, the paintings usually include a half-length figure whose bright clothes contrast with a dark background with earnest expressions- their pale, white faces turning slightly away from the beholder- suggesting an intimate world where neither the artist nor the spectator really intrudes.
Final Words.
During the Renaissance, both Italian and Northern European women artists painted tremendous artworks, but while a few still emphasized portraiture, many other women artists ranged to even mythological and religious subjects to explore more genres of art. Catharina van Hemessen was one of the fine artists from the Northern Renaissance who excelled in portraiture but painted religious and mythology too. Though her career lasted for only a few years, she excelled in making portraiture using stark contrasts, brighter color schemes, and individualistic emotions to the sitters of her portraits.
Resources.
- Our Hidden Heritage: Five Centuries of Women Artists by Eleanor Tufts.
- Women Artists, 1550-1950 by Ann Sutherland Harris.
- Women Artists: An Illustrated History by Nancy Heller.
- Featured Image: Christ Meets Veronica by Catharina van Hemessen; Catarina van Hemessen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Frequently Asked Questions.
Catharina van Hemessen is known for her portraiture from the Northern Renaissance period. She majorly used stark contrasts for her sitters with black backgrounds, individualistic expressions, and realistic approaches in her portraits.
Caterina van Hemessen was an excellent flemish portrait artist who was the first woman artist whose works were dated and signed. Being a significant artist of the Renaissance, she created at least 10 works, which are known to us.
Catharina van Hemessen was born in Antwerp to the painter, Jan van Hemessen in 1528. Starting her career as early as in her 20s, she had wealthy patrons, including Queen Mary of Hungary.
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