Catharina Van Hamessen (1528-1588), a Flemish Renaissance painter, is known as the first artist of either gender to have painted a self-portrait sitting at an easel. Van Hamessen was trained with her father, the artist Jan Sanders Van Hamessen (c.1500-c. 1566). Self-portrait has been a way for artists to practice and develop eye-to hand observation. For women who were excluded from life-drawing classes for centuries, self-portraiture was substantial for learning anatomy. In her self-portrait Van Hamessen depicts herself creating the same painting that we see before us, which makes the work one of the most pioneering in the history of image-making.
Link
www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210305-caterina-van-hemessen-an-unknown-visual-pioneer
