The Female Painters of the Renaissance

Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of Bianca degli Utili Maselli and Her Children (c. 1604)

Lavinia Fontana (1552–11 August 1614) was an Italian Mannerist painter active in Bologna and Rome. She is best known for her successful portraiture, but also worked in the genres of mythology and religious painting. She was trained by her father, Prospero Fontana. She is regarded as the first female career artist in Western Europe, as she relied on commissions for her income. Her family relied on her career as a painter, and her husband served as her agent and raised their 11 children. She was perhaps the first female artist to paint female nudes, but this is a topic of controversy among art historians. [source]

The painting at the top of the page can be seen in San Francisco at the Legion of Honor.

Sofonisba Anguissola (1532 - 1625) was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cremona to a relatively poor noble family. She received a well-rounded education that included the fine arts, and her apprenticeship with local painters set a precedent for women to be accepted as students of art. As a young woman, Anguissola traveled to Rome where she was introduced to Michelangelo, who immediately recognized her talent, and to Milan, where she painted the Duke of Alba. The Spanish queen, Elizabeth of Valois, was a keen amateur painter and in 1559 Anguissola was recruited to go to Madrid as her tutor, with the rank of lady-in-waiting. She later became an official court painter to the king, Philip II, and adapted her style to the more formal requirements of official portraits for the Spanish court. After the queen's death, Philip helped arrange an aristocratic marriage for her. She moved to Sicily, and later Pisa and Genoa, where she continued to practice as a leading portrait painter. [source]

Sister Plautilla Nelli (1524–1588) was a self-taught nun-artist and the first ever known female Renaissance painter of Florence. She was a nun of the Dominican convent of St. Catherine of Siena located in Piazza San Marco, Florence, and was heavily influenced by the teachings of Savonarola and by the artwork of Fra Bartolomeo.[source]

Fede Galizia, better known as Galizia, (c. 1578 – c. 1630) was an Italian painter of still-lifes, portraits, and religious pictures. She is especially noted as a painter of still-lifes of fruit, a genre in which she was one of the earliest practitioners in European art. She is perhaps not as well known as other female artists, such as Angelica Kauffman and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, because she did not have access to court-oriented or aristocratic social circles, nor had she sought the particular patronage of political rulers and noblemen. [source]

Diana Scultori (1547 – 1612) was an Italian engraver from Mantua, Italy. She is one of the earliest known women printmakers, making mostly reproductive engravings of well-known paintings or drawings, especially those of Raphael and Giulio Romano, or ancient Roman sculptures. [source]

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – 1656) was an Italian Baroque painter. Gentileschi is considered among the most accomplished 17th-century artists, initially working in the style of Caravaggio. She was producing professional work by the age of 15. In an era when women had few opportunities to pursue artistic training or work as professional artists, Gentileschi was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence and she had an international clientele. [source]

Catharina van Hemessen (1528 – after 1565) was a Flemish Renaissance painter. She is the earliest female Flemish painter for whom there is verifiable extant work. She is mainly known for a series of small-scale female portraits completed between the late 1540s and early 1550s and a few religious compositions. [source]

Barbara Longhi  (1552 – 1638) was an Italian painter. She was much admired in her lifetime as a portraitist, although most of her portraits are now lost or unattributed. Her work, such as her many Madonna and Child paintings, earned her a fine reputation as an artist. [source]

Marietta Robusti (1560? – 1590) was a highly skilled Venetian painter of the Renaissance period. She was the daughter of Tintoretto (Jacobo Robusti) and sometimes, is referred to as Tintoretta. [source]