Painter, Portraitist, Pioneer (Guest Post)
Nearly 500 years ago, Flemish painter Catharina van Hemessen (1528–after 1567) was born in Antwerp. For much of the intervening five centuries, her reputation has languished—most egregiously, given that she was hardly unknown in her own time.
Lodovico Guicciardini lauds her in his 1567 Description of the Low Countries. Italian art historian Giorgio Vasari praises the artist in the 1568 edition of his book on excellent artists. She is one of only four female painters mentioned by those sixteenth-century art historians as having worked in Antwerp at the time. Of those four, Van Hemessen is the only one for whom an indisputable corpus of works can be established. Her signature on many of her works puts her authorship beyond doubt.
But happily, renewed interest in Van Hemessen and her work accompanies the revival in recent decades of interest in early modern women artists, generally. Her work has featured in survey exhibitions such as Geniale Frauen / Ingenious Women and Saints, Sinners, Lovers and Fools. And it will be the central focus of two upcoming art exhibitions:
Van Hemessen & Father: The Antwerp Workshop of Jan and Catharina van Hemessen opens at the Snijders&Rockox House Museum on October 15, 2026, where it will run through January 31, 2027
Catharina van Hemessen opens at the National Gallery, London on March 4th, 2027, where it will run through May 30, 2027.
As we await what promises to be a pair of extraordinary expositions, an assessment is in order. What do we know about this painter’s life, and about her artistic achievements?
Family background and training
Catharina van Hemessen was born in Antwerp in the early sixteenth century, when the city flourished as an important trading hub. Antwerp’s general prosperity supported the trade in art, so Catharina grew up in quite an artistic milieu. Probably her father, the famous artist Jan Sanders van Hemessen, trained her as a painter, alongside her three brothers.
At that time, Antwerp’s elementary schools were open to girls as well as boys. Therefore Catharina would have been exposed to at least some of these subjects: reading, writing, grammar, bookkeeping, mathematics, languages, and music.
Music, in particular, seems to have been an important element in Catherina’s life. Her older sister Christina appears tohave been an accomplished musician. Art historian Eleanor Tufts posited that Catherina’s painting Young Woman Playing the Virginals, from c. 1548, is a portrait of Christina van Hemessen. Eventually, Catherina would marry a professional organist; and according to art historian Jennifer Courts, the artist had a daughter who gave a musical performance at Philip II’s coronation as king of Portugal in 1581.
When Catharina was about 20 years old, her father became Dean of Antwerp’s Guild of Saint Luke. With his extensive network, he was in a position to introduce her into key artistic circles.
Marriage and adult life
In 1554, Catharina married an organist—his name is presented variously as Kerstiaen de Morijn, Kerstiaen de Moryn, Christian de Morien, and Chrétian de Morien—who then worked at Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk, a cathedral in Antwerp. It seems that Catharina ceased painting in the mid 1550s, possibly even before her marriage. As Jennifer Courts has written, it is possible that Catharina transitioned during this time from working as an artist to the more genteel role of lady-in-waiting.
In 1556 the couple traveled to Spain as members of the court of Mary of Hungary, where Catharina served as a lady-in-waiting. Mary of Hungary was the sister of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who, after her husband died, appointed her governor of the Netherlands. Her court was intellectually and artistically sophisticated; she herself was a discerning collector and patron. According to art historian Julie James, Catharina “was never formally appointed as a court painter, and while she may have continued her work at Mary’s court, nonetheless her reputation would have made her an interesting addition to the court’s social and cultural circles.”
After Mary’s death in 1558, the couple returned to the Southern Netherlands, probably to Antwerp. They were the beneficiaries of a lifelong pension provided by the Habsburg queen. We do not know the precise year, even, that Catharina died.
Career as an artist
Frustratingly little information is available about Catharina van Hemessen’s career as a painter. It appears she painted for only for a brief time, from about 1548 to about 1556. Scholars don’t know much about her commissions, including the identities of her sitters—though from the quality of their attire, it seems they were well-to-do.
The body of work that can be securely attributed to Catharina van Hemessen is relatively small. Scholars believe that 13 paintings that the artist signed—including mostly small-format portraits, but also a few larger religious-themed works—still exist, but in a few cases they don’t know the current location of the work. There are at least another eight paintings that might be by Van Hemessen’s hand.
While the artist did sign many of her paintings, she did not present her name consistently. It appears in at least three variations: Caterina de Hemessen; Catherina de Hemessen; and Catharina de Hemessen.
An influential self-portrait
Catharina van Hemessen’s most famous work is her 1548 self-portrait. The painting is held at the Kunstmuseum Basel; it was gifted to the museum in 2015. It is an artwork of considerable significance, for several reasons:
Within Western art history, it is the earliest known self-portrait of an artist—of any gender—painting at an easel, surrounded by the tools of the trade. It inspired the self-portraits of many later artists, male and female, including Sofonisba Anguissola.
It is believed to be a pendant to Van Hemessen’s Young Woman Playing the Virginals, which supports the theory that the musician depicted is indeed Catharina’s sister Christina.
Given that she painted it at the start of her career, it seems likely that Van Hemessen created this self-portrait in order to promote herself as an artist. As art historian Céline Talon has written, the self-portrait reflects “not only an original desire to broadcast the painter’s image and distinctive physical and artistic features, but also to present her awareness of contemporary art theory, as represented visually by the tools, palette, and pose.”
Scholars know of at least two sixteenth-century copies of this work. The copies may or may not be by the artist’s hand, but their existence demonstrates that the original painting circulated, and that it generated considerable interest and attention.
Encountering Catharina Van Hemessen today
While Van Hemessen’s oeuvre is small, the majority of her known works are held in public collections. This situation increases the access that art lovers have to her work. In addition to Kunstmuseum Basel, institutions that own one or more Catharina Van Hemessen paintings include London’s National Gallery; the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam; Royal Fine Art Museums of Belgium; Snijders&Rockox House Museum; Cologne’s Wallraf-Richartz Museum; The Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University; the Bowes Museum; and the Cincinnati Art Museum.
The Phoebus Foundation holds Van Hemessen’s 1550 Portrait of a Woman; while it is a private collection, it makes the work available for public view in temporary exhibitions. A private collection owns her Rest on the Flight into Egypt, which it has loaned to the Mauritshuis Museum for visitors to enjoy. Portrait of a woman with a little dog belongs to the Flemish government, which makes it available for public consumption through a long-term loan to the Snijders&Rockox House Museum.
Another twenty-first century context in which Catharina van Hemessen’s presence might be felt is the world of fine art auctions. Since 2013, at least three paintings by or attributed to the painter have appeared on the auction block. In every case, the result exceeded expectations:
In 2013, Portrait of a child sold for £109,875, far surpassing the pre-sale estimate of £40,000–60,000. It is likely that the painting is now in a private collection.
Portrait of a Lady, c. 1550, was offered in November 2016. The auction result was €16,250, slightly more than the high end of the estimate range of €8,000–12,000. The Phoebus Collection is the current owner of this painting.
In 2021, Portrait of a woman with a little dog generated a price of €18,500, more than double the high end of the pre-sale estimate of €5,000–8,000. Acquired by the Flemish government, this work is now on view in the Snijders&Rockox House Museum.
Flemish women artists: a lineage
Catharina van Hemessen was an illustrious early modern woman artist who came from a Flemish background—but was she the only one?
While Van Hemessen is the first Flemish woman artist to whom a body of extant work can be securely attributed, she is not the first on record. In the same work in which he lauds Catharina, Lodovico Guicciardini mentions these female artists who were her contemporaries: Anna Coblegers, Clara de Keysere, Susanna Horenbout (also Hornebolt), Levina Teerlinc, and Mayken Verhulst.
And there were several Flemish women who followed in Catharina’s footsteps. Recent art exhibitions such as Making Her Mark and Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600–1750 have displayed sculptures by Maria Faydherbe, as well as drawings by Anna Francisca de Bruyns, and paintings by Clara Peeters, Maria Tassaert, Johanna Vergouwen, Caterina Ykens I, Caterina Ykens II, and Michaelina Wautier. A solo exhibition of Wautier’s work is on display at London’s Royal Academy until June 21.
Painter, Portraitist, Pioneer
There is hope that scholars will yet uncover more information about—and possibly even more paintings by—Catharina van Hemessen. The research leading up to the 2026–2027 exhibitions mentioned at the start of this article will perhaps result in new discoveries. At the very least, though, the assembly of her known works under one roof seems a fitting celebration of the (almost) 500th birthday of a remarkable artist.
This guest post came from Erika Gaffney of Art Herstory, a wonderful celebration of women artists of centuries past!
