Catharina van Hemessen, for the first time

In 16th-century Europe, women painters were largely absent from documents, collections and art history. Catharina van Hemessen is an exception. Her paintings bear clear signatures, allowing scholars to identify with certainty a body of works produced in Antwerp between the late 1540s and the early 1550s. From 4 March to 30 May 2027, the National Gallery will dedicate to the artist the exhibition Catharina van Hemessen: Signature Works, the first British exhibition entirely focused on her work. Organised in collaboration with the Museum Snijders&Rockoxhuis, the exhibition will bring together many of the surviving signed paintings from international collections. The display will focus on the small-scale portraits for which van Hemessen is best known, works characterised by dark backgrounds, close framing and careful attention to the psychological presence of the sitters. The daughter of Mannerist painter Jan Sanders van Hemessen, Catharina was probably trained in her father’s workshop in Antwerp. Historical sources from the period, including Giorgio Vasari and Lodovico Guicciardini, mention her among the rare women artists active in the Low Countries during the 16th century. After her marriage and her move to Spain as part of the court of Maria of Hungary, traces of her artistic activity become fragmentary. No work dated after 1554 has been securely identified. Among the highlights is the 1548 Self-Portrait at the Easel, on loan from the Kunstmuseum Basel. The painting is considered the earliest known self-portrait by a female painter and one of the first depictions of an artist working at an easel. Van Hemessen portrays herself while painting, looking directly at the viewer, surrounded by brushes, palette and the tools of her profession. In recent years museums and institutions have increasingly reconsidered the role of women artists in European art history through acquisitions, restorations and new research. The London exhibition takes part in this broader reassessment while remaining focused on a small and well-documented group of works rather than on a celebratory reconstruction.