List of 16th-century women artists explained

16th-century women artists – female painters, miniaturists, manuscript illuminators, calligraphers, engravers and sculptors born between 1500 and 1600.

Asia

China

• Ma Shouzhen (c. 1548–1604) – Gējì and artist, painter, poet, and composer.
• Xue Susu (c.1564–1650? C.E.) – Gējì, poet, painter, archer.
• Qiu Zhu (fl. 1565–1585) – painter, daughter of painter Qiu Ying.

Japan

• Ono Otsū (1559 or 1568–1631) – noblewoman, calligrapher, poet, painter and musician.

Europe

Italy

See: List of Italian Renaissance female artists

Netherlands

• Marguerite Scheppers (active from 1501 onward) – miniaturist.
• (d. 1540) – miniaturist, pupil of Marguerite Scheppers
• Susannah Hornebolt (1503–c. 1554) – daughter of painter Gerard Hornebolt, gentlewoman attendant to queen Jane Seymour. First known female artist in England.
• Levina Teerlinc (1510s – 23 June 1576) – miniaturist who served as a painter to the English court. Daughter of painter Simon Bening.
• Mayken Verhulst (1518–1596 or 1599) – painter, miniaturist. Wife of painter Pieter Coecke van Aelst, mother-in-law of Pieter Brueghel the Elder, the first teacher of her grandsons Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder.
• Mechtelt van Lichtenberg (ca. 1520–1598)
• Catharina van Hemessen (1527–1587) – daughter of painter Jan Sanders van Hemessen.
• (before 1551 – after 1610) – daughter of female painter of Mechtelt van Lichtenberg
• (1551 – after 1629) – daughter of female painter of Mechtelt van Lichtenberg^[1]
• Anna van Cronenburg (1552 – after 1590)^[2] – relative of painter Adriaan van Cronenburg.
• Colette van den Keere (1568–1629) – engraver, daughter of foundry artist Hendrik van den Keere
• Anna Roemersdr. Visscher (1584–1652) – artist, poet, translator, glass engraver.
• Clara Peeters (1589–1657?)
• Anna Tymansdr. Steyn (1589–1618) – calligrapher ^[3]
• Maria Tesselschade Visscher (1594–1649) – poet and glass engraver.

British Isles

• Jane Segar (?) – sister of William Segar, manuscript illuminator
• Elizabeth Lucar (1510–1537) – calligrapher
• Esther Inglis (1571–1624), worked in Scotland.
• Anne Gulliver, wife of court painter John Brown (d. 1532)^[4]
• Alice Herne, wife of court painter William Herne (or Heron, d. 1580)

Flemish females at Tudor court^[5] :

• Susannah Hornebolt (1503–c. 1554) – daughter of painter Gerard Hornebolt, gentlewoman attendant to queen Jane Seymour. First known female artist in England.
• Levina Teerlinc (1510s – 23 June 1576) – miniaturist who served as a painter to the English court. Daughter of painter Simon Bening.

France

• Suzanne de Court (fl. 1600) – enamel painter in the Limoges workshops, possibly the daughter of Jean de Court

Sweden

• Anna Swenonis (d. 1527) – nun, manuscript illuminator

Switzerland

• Eva Abyberg (1588–1669)^[6]

Books

• Weidner, M.S. Views from Jade Terrace : Chinese women artists, 1300–1912
• Yuho, Tseng. “Women Painters of the Ming Dynasty.” Artibus Asiae, vol. 53, no. 1/2, 1993, pp. 249–61.
• “Splendid Japanese Women Artists of the Edo Period”. Special Exhibition on the 120th Anniversary of Jissen Women's Educational Institute, at the Kōsetsu Memorial Museum, Tokyo, April 18–June 21, 2015
• Harris, Anne Sutherland and Linda Nochlin, Women Artists: 1550–1950, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Knopf, New York, 1976
• Heller, Nancy. Women Artists: An Illustrated History. New York: Abbeville Press, 1997. ISBN 0-7892-0345-6
• J. Dabbs (ed.), Life Stories of Women Artists, 1550–1800. An Anthology (Farnham 2009).

Notes and References

1. https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/BoecopCornelia
2. https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/Cronenburg
3. https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/steyn
4. Tanja L. Jones (ed.). Women Artists in the Early Modern Courts of Europe. c. 1450–1700. P. 19
5. Tittler . Robert . 2016 . James . Susan E . The 'Feminine Dynamic' in Tudor Art: A reassessment . The British Art Journal . 17 . 1 . 123–130 . 24914097 . 1467-2006.
6. Web site: Abyberg, Eva . Benezit Dictionary of Artists . 2011 . 3 March 2024 . 10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00000436. 978-0-19-977378-7 .