Self-Portrait (van Hemessen)

Self-Portrait is a small painting executed in oil on oak in 1548 by the Flemish Renaissance artist Catharina van Hemessen when she was 20 years old.

[4] In the main image, Hemessen has shown herself elegantly clothed in a black brocade dress and red velvet sleeves.

While such an outfit would have been impractical for an artist working with oils and brushes, her clothes are intended to indicate her social rank and attribute personal dignity.

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.

Some have speculated that it was created by her father Jan Sanders van Hemessen (1500–c 1566); he tended to portray women with the same large round and dark eyes and reduced chin.