Female self-portraiture in early modern Bologna Author(s): Babette Bohn Source: Renaissance Studies, Vol. 18, No. 2 (JUNE 2004), pp. 239-286 Published by: Wiley Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/24413408 Accessed: 23-03-2018 15:29 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Wiley is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Renaissance Studies This content downloaded from 100.15.134.190 on Fri, 23 Mar 2018 15:29:03 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Renaissance Studies Vol. 18 No. 2 Female self-portraiture in early modern Bologna Babette Bohn This essay examines female self-portraiture in Bologna during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing in particular on the seventeenth century, and considering these works in relation to self-portraits by male contempor aries. Bologna became a centre for women artists, culminating during the seventeenth century, when at least twenty-two female artists were active in the city. It is also the only Italian city with extant self-portraits by five different women artists during 1577-1678, although a forty-year gap, between 1614 and the 1650s, interrupts an otherwise continuous tradition.