More women artists - the early ones

A search for self-portraits of women artists has turned up many in the 17th century and subsequently, but few in the 16th century and earlier. This may have something to do with the status of painters in society at the time ... a topic for possible research on some rainy day, later...

The Flemish painter Caterina van Hemessen painted herself in 1548, when she was 20 years old. It is not only the earliest known self portrait in oils by a woman painter but also the oldest self portrait by an artist of either gender to include an easel. As with so many Renaissance painters, her father was a painter.
Of course there were women artists in the medieval period too - read about some of them here. They include makers of the Bayeux tapestry and Opus Anglicanum; the multi-talented Hildegard of Bingen; and many unnamed women, including manuscript illuminators:

"Manuscript illumination affords us many of the named artists of the Medieval Period including Ende, a tenth century Spanish nun; Guda, a twelfth century German nun; Claricia, twelfth century laywoman in a Bavarian scriptorium. These women, and many more unnamed illuminators, benefited from the nature of convents as the major loci of learning for women in the period and the most tenable option for intellectuals among them."