Caterina or Catharina van Hemessen 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 female portraits completed between the late 1540s and early 1550s and a few religious compositions.
Van Hemessen is often given the distinction of creating the first self-portrait of an artist (of either gender) depicted seated at an easel.
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| Catharina van Hemessen | Self-portrait, 1546-48 | Kuntsmuseum Basel |
This portrait, created in 1548, shows the artist in the early stages of painting a portrait and is now part of the collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel.
Other paintings by van Hemessen are in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and in the National Gallery, London.
A number of obstacles stood in the way of women of her time who wished to become painters. Their training would involve both the dissection of cadavers and the study of the nude male figure 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.
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Life
She was the daughter of Jan Sanders van Hemessen (c. 1500-after 1563), a prominent Mannerist painter in Antwerp who had studied in Italy.
Her father is believed to have been her teacher and she likely collaborated with him on many of his paintings.
She became a master in the Guild of St. Luke and was the teacher of three students.
Van Hemessen was a successful painter in her lifetime.
She gained an important patron in the 1540s in the person of Maria of Austria, who served as regent of the Low Countries on behalf of her brother Charles V.
In 1554, van Hemessen married Christian de Morien, an organist at the Antwerp Cathedral, which was an important position at that time.
In 1556, when Maria of Austria returned to Spain, Catharina and her husband moved there, at the invitation of her patron.
Two years later, when Maria died, Catharina was given a sizeable pension for life.
Catharina and her husband returned to Antwerp where they are recorded in 1561. At that time the couple was childless. Her husband received an appointment to work in 's-Hertogenbosch and the couple moved there around 1565.
In her lifetime she was mentioned by two Italian artist biographers, Lodovico Guicciardini in his Description of the Low Countries of 1567 and Giorgio Vasari in his Vite of 1568.
Work
While van Hemessen did create at least two religious paintings, she was mainly a portraitist. Eight small portraits and two religious pictures, with dates between 1548-1552, bearing her signature have survived.
She portrayed ostensibly wealthy men and women often posed against a dark background. The delicate figures she painted have a graceful charm and are provided with stylish costumes and accessories.
Her best-known work is her self-portrait (Kunstmuseum Basel). She inscribed the painting with the year, 1548, and her age, 20 years.
Around the same time she also painted a picture of a woman at a spinet, which may have been a portrait of her sister.
Van Hemessen's portraits are characterized by their realism. The one self-portrait and the half a dozen other portraits that have been attributed to her are small, quiet pictures. The sitters, often seated, were usually portrayed against a dark or neutral ground, their gazes rarely meeting the viewer's eyes. This type of framing and setting made for an intimate and dignified portrait.
She produced religious compositions which were generally less successful than her portraits.
There are no extant works later than 1554, which has led some historians to believe her artistic career might have ended after her marriage, which was common in the case of female artists. | © Wikipedia
Catharina van Hemessen (Anversa, 1528-1587) è stata una pittrice Fiamminga.
Figlia del pittore Jan Sanders van Hemessen, da cui con ogni probabilità apprese le prime tecniche della pittura, Catharina van Hemessen è la prima pittrice fiamminga di cui si possa definire con certezza l'opera e la prima pittrice di cui si conosca un autoritratto, l'Autoritratto al cavalletto.
Questo dipinto, conservato al Kunstmuseum di Basilea, è stato datato e firmato dall'artista, dichiarando anche la sua età.
Catharina van Hemessen ha dipinto ritratti di borghesi e soggetti religiosi. Prediligeva ritrarre a tre quarti o a mezza figura, su fondo neutro e scuro, senza abbellire e senza indulgere nei particolari.
Di sua mano conosciamo nove ritratti e quattro scene sacre. Anche il Ritratto di un uomo, conservato oggi al Museo reale delle belle arti del Belgio è firmato e datato.
Come aveva fatto suo padre, entrò nella Corporazione di San Luca di Anversa ed ottenne l'autorizzazione all'insegnamento della pittura dai suoi colleghi.
Intorno al 1540 Catharina fu accolta alla corte di Maria d'Asburgo, sorella di Carlo V.
Nel 1554 sposò Christian di Morien, organista di corte e della cattedrale di Notre-Dame di Anversa.
Nel 1555 fu scelta come dama d'onore della città di Bruxelles e nel 1556, insieme a suo marito, accompagnò Maria d'Asburgo nel suo feudo in Spagna. Assunse quindi il compito di dama di compagnia della regina di Spagna, con l'onere di seguire l'infante Don Carlos, principe delle Asturie, nella sua formazione artistica.
Nel 1554 Filippo II di Spagna si era risposato con una cugina, la regina Maria I d'Inghilterra che morì quattro anni dopo, senza avere figli.
Alla morte di Maria d'Asburgo, nel 1558, Catharina e suo marito ricevettero una pensione come compenso per i servigi prestati nell'arco di molti anni. Tornarono quindi ad Anversa, mentre al posto di Catharina van Hemessen, alla corte spagnola fu chiamata Sofonisba Anguissola.
Nel 1561 Catharina van Hemessen e suo marito si ritirarono a Bois-le-Duc. Lodovico Guicciardini, nel suo libro sui Paesi Bassi, pubblicato nel 1567, dà alcune informazioni sulla vita di Catharina van Hemessen e dice che quell'anno era vivente. |© Wikipedia
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