Eleonora Monti

Eleonora Monti (July 20, 1727 – after 1760) was an 18th century Italian artist best known as a portraitist.

She was the daughter of Francesco Monti, an artist, and Teresa Marchioni. As her father was known to be in Bologna, Italy, in the 1720s, it is likely that she was born there. He moved to Brescia in 1738, presumably taking his daughter with him, and she appears to have spent most of her career in that city.

Monti showed early aptitude for art and by her early teens her father was instructing her in drawing and painting. She eventually specialized in portraits and became known as a talented portraitist. Her sitters ranged from ladies and gentlemen to monks, nuns, and merchants. The painter Giovanni Battista Zaist commissioned a painting of the Virgin Mary from her.

She was made an honorary member of the prestigious Accademia Clementina in Bologna, a clear sign of her stature at a time when there were very few women painters. She was one of the artists included in Felsina pittrice, Luigi Crespi's revision of Carlo Cesare Malvasia's book on the painters of Bologna.

...
Wikipedia