Active in: Italy

Biography

Born in Rome in 1590, Caterina Ginnasi was put in the care of her uncle, Cardinal Domenico Ginnasi (1550–1639), at a young age. He recognized her talent for art and encouraged her to study painting, first with Gaspare Celio (1571–1640) and later with Giovanni Lanfranco (1582–1647). Benefitting from her uncle’s ecclesiastical connections, she began to make religious paintings and altarpieces, such as that for the church of Santa Lucia alle Botteghe Oscure. The church had been rebuilt in 1630 under her uncle’s patronage and she produced a number of decorations for it. For her uncle’s chapel in the cathedral of Velletri, she painted a large altarpiece of the Virgin and four saints, as well as several side paintings and the chapel’s dome, although those works have all since been lost.

She painted the main altarpiece at the church of SS. Dell’Angeli Custodi, which was demolished in the early twentieth century. Other works recorded in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries have since been lost. Ginnasi was one of very few women artists to become members of the Accademia di San Luca and she was the only woman artist mentioned in Giovanni Battista Passeri’s Vite de pittori, scultori ed architetti: che anno lavorato in Roma, morti dal 1641 fino al 1673, first published in 1772. She never married and retained close friendships with nuns throughout her entire life. She died in Rome in 1660.

Selected Works

Caterina Ginnasi, Portrait of Cardinal Domini Ginnasi, ca. 1630. Oil on canvas, 103 x 84 cm. Castel Bolognese (stolen 2004).