Uffizi Galleries: Palutilla Nelli, an exibit on the first professional female artist of the world

Plautilla Nelli (Florence 1524-1588) did not know anything about male anatomy and would paint gently feminine faces even when she had to dipict the Apostoles or Christ on the cross. The other nuns in the convent used to make fun of her and said Plautilla did not paint Christ-figures, but only “Christine-figures” on the cross.

How could it be possibly different? After marrying for the second time, her father closed her up in the Dominican convent of Saint Catherine of Siena in Florence at the age of 14, and she learnt how to paint by herself, without any possibility of updating her style according to the innovations

brought about by High Renaissance in the 16th century. Though her paintings were praised by great Giorgio Vasari and requested not only by churches and monasteries, but also by Florentine gentlemen for their private collections. Only a limited number of Plautilla's works have survived. Among them the only signed work by the woman artist is the imposing Last Supper, the 6.7 metre long oil-canvas preserved in the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence.

A fervent nun and an exquisite painter of devotional images, Plautilla is part of that large group of women painters who have remained invisible and rarely considered until recent time. These strong determined women had to strive, sometimes in a hard way, to assert their talent in the centuries when they lived, dominated by a world of men. Their most valuable works were at times attributed to male artists by people who were not ready to accept them as extraordinary painters and sculptors.

Only recently Plautilla has been rediscovered and returned to the world of authentic art, to the point that she is now regarded as the first Florentine woman painter.

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