Women Artists of the Renaissance era

Although women artists have been involved in the making of art throughout history, their work, when compared to that of their male counterparts, has been often obfuscated, overlooked and undervalued. Many of their works have been wrongly attributed to men artists.

Renaissance Europe was not a promising place for female artists to emerge. Women were expected to marry and have children, and those who did work were not welcomed into male-dominated professions. In fact women were unable to even receive formal art training (a cornerstone of which was the study of the figure).

Plautilla Nelli (1524-1588) | The first Woman painter of Florence

Plautilla Nelli | The Last Supper, 1570 (detail) | Museo di Santa Maria Novella, Florence

Sister Plautilla Nelli was a self-taught nun-artist and the first-known female Renaissance painter of Florence.

She was a nun of the Dominican convent of St. Catherine of Siena located in Piazza San Marco, Florence, and was heavily influenced by the teachings of Savonarola and by the artwork of Fra Bartolomeo.

Levina Teerlinc (1510-1576) | Renaissance miniaturist

Levina Teerlinc was a Flemish Renaissance miniaturist who served as a painter to the English court of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

She was the most important miniaturist at the English court between Hans Holbein the Younger and Nicholas Hilliard.

Her father, Simon Bening was a renowned book illuminator and miniature painter of the Ghent-Bruges school and probably trained her as a manuscript painter. She may have worked in her father's workshop before her marriage.

Catharina van Hemessen (1528-1587) | Renaissance painter

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.

Diana Scultori (1547-1612) Mannerist painter

Diana Scultori, Diana Montovano, or Diana Ghisi was an Italian engraver from Mantua, Italy.

She is one of the earliest known women printmakers.

She was one of four children of the sculptor and engraver Giovanni Battista Ghisi. Diana learned the art of engraving from her father and the artist Giulio Romano.

She received her first public recognition as an engraver in Giorgio Vasari’s second edition of his Vites (1568).

Giorgio Vasari | Vita di Sandro Botticello - Pittor Fiorentino

Ne’ medesimi tempi del Magnifico Lorenzo Vecchio de’ Medici, che fu veramente per le persone d’ingegno un secol d’oro, fiorì ancora Alessandro, chiamato a l’uso nostro Sandro e detto di Botticello per la cagione che appresso vedremo.

Costui fu figliuolo di Mariano Filipepi, cittadino fiorentino dal quale diligentemente allevato e fatto instruire in tutte quelle cose che usanza è di insegnarsi a’ fanciulli in quella età, prima che e’ si ponghino a le botteghe, ancora che agevolmente apprendesse tutto quello che e’ voleva, era nientedimanco inquieto sempre; né si contentava di scuola alcuna, di leggere, di scrivere o di abbaco; di maniera che il padre infastidito di questo cervello sì stravagante, per disperato lo pose a lo orefice con un suo compare chiamato Botticello, assai competente maestro allora in quell’arte.

Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614)

Lavinia Fontana was an Italian painter.

She is regarded as the first woman artist, working within the same sphere as her male counterparts, outside a court or convent. She was the first woman artist to paint female figures, and was the main breadwinner of a family of 13.

Lavinia Fontana was born in Bologna, the daughter of the painter Prospero Fontana, who was a prominent painter of the School of Bologna at the time and served as her teacher. Continuing the family business was typical at the time.

Michelangelo Buonarroti | Vita ed Opere

Michelàngelo (o Michelàngiolo; propr. Michelàgnolo) Buonarroti - Architetto, scultore, pittore, poeta (Caprese, od. Caprese Michelangelo, Arezzo, 1475 - Roma 1564). Culmine della civiltà rinascimentale, celebrato come il massimo genio del suo tempo, ne rappresentò anche la drammatica conclusione. Apprendista dal 1487 nella bottega di D. Ghirlandaio, intorno al 1489 venne in contatto presso il giardino di S. Marco, domicilio della collezione di antichità della famiglia Medici, con la statuaria classica e la filosofia neoplatonica, componenti essenziali per lo sviluppo della sua produzione artistica.

Nel 1498 il cardinale J. Bilhères gli commissionò per la sua tomba in S. Petronilla a Roma la Pietà : per il carattere di perfetta armonia, grazia e bellezza, l'opera suscitò universale ammirazione. Tornato a Firenze, Michelàngelo realizzò la statua di David🎨(1501-04), quindi nel 1505 fu di nuovo a Roma per eseguire la tomba di Giulio II in S. Pietro, i cui tormentati lavori si sarebbero protratti per oltre quarant'anni.