Artist Catharina van Hemessen signed her self-portrait

In 1548, Catharina van Hemessen, a Flemish artist from Antwerp, Belgium, painted a self-portrait showing herself at work and signed it, a rare act for a woman artist of that era.

A new exhibition at the Snijders and Rockoxhuis museum aims to highlight van Hemessen’s accomplishments, which have been historically overlooked.

Researchers discovered evidence of van Hemessen’s contributions to paintings created in her father Jan van Hemessen’s workshop, revealing she assisted with background figures and even had a hidden painting beneath one of her own works. The exhibition features over 30 works by Catharina and her father, some never before shown publicly.

Van Hemessen was born into an artistic family in 1528 and benefited from the cultural environment of Antwerp, allowing her greater access to education than many women at the time. She married a musician, Kerstiaen de Morijn, and the couple moved to Spain in 1556 when he became a court organist. Though some believed van Hemessen also worked at the Spanish court, records indicate only her husband received a pension from the regent Mary of Hungary.

After Mary’s death in 1558, van Hemessen and her husband returned to the Low Countries and later settled in ’s-Hertogenbosch. While the exact date of her death remains unknown, records show she was still alive in 1567. The exhibition will travel to London in 2027.