Elisabetta Sirani was an Italian Baroque painter, whose father was the painter Giovanni Andrea Sirani of the School of Bologna.
Sirani spent her life in Bologna, a city famous for its progressive attitude toward women’s rights and for producing successful female artists. She apprenticed to her father at a young age but when he became incapacitated when she was 19 she ran her family’s workshop, supporting her parents, three siblings, and herself entirely through her art. Sirani also opened a studio for women artists, which was a completely new idea for its time.
According to written records, when she died at 27, Sirani had already produced 200 paintings, drawings, and etchings in addition to leaving a legacy through her teaching. Her pupils included her two sisters, Barbara and Anna Maria, and more than a dozen other young women who became professional painters.