Portrait of Dr. Fernando Mendes
Catherine da Costa
1721
Credits
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.
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Creator Bio
Catherine da Costa
Catherine da Costa was an English miniature painter, commonly recognized as the first known female Jewish painter. Likewise, she was the first English-born Jewish artist and the second English-born female artist in recorded history. Da Costa’s father, Fernando Mendez, who was of Portuguese origin, was physician to Charles II and named his daughter after Queen Catherine. Da Costa married a wealthy merchant, Anthony Moses da Costa. She studied under the famous drawing master and engraver Bernard de jongere Lens and painted miniatures of her family and other members of the Jewish community. In a self-portrait from ca. 1721, she depicts herself at work in a studio, painting a portrait of mother and child that resembles paintings of Madonna and child. Among her works is also a painting of her father in full eighteenth-century dress, a miniature of her son, Abraham, and a portrait of the merchant Francis (Daniel) Salvador.
Related Guide
Early Modern Trade and Mercantilism (1500–1750)
International trade drove Jewish mobility during the age of mercantilism, as Jewish merchants formed wide commercial networks and partnerships and developed cosmopolitan attitudes that facilitated civic inclusion.
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Visual and Material Culture, 1500–1750
Early modern Jewish visual culture flourished, with illuminated manuscripts, ornate synagogues, and portraiture alongside increasing non-Jewish interest in Jewish customs and greater Jewish self-representation.
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