Michaelina Wautier was a successful artist during her lifetime (1614 – 1689) but subsequently unknown until very recently. This exhibition at the Royal Academy is the celebration of a talent that deserves to be better known to the public.
Previously ignored due to male art historians unable to conceive that a woman could paint to such a standard, much of her work was mis-attributed to her brother, Charles, with whom she lived and worked.
Here is an early drawing, the only one known to survive, a copy of a classical sculpture. Drawing sculpture was the final part of training for any serious artist before working from the live figure.
Most of Wautier’s known work is included in this exhibition and covers many genres: portraiture, still life, religious and mythological showing her versatility.
She painted children with a sensitivity unmatched by her male peers.
She captured their personalities even in depictions of the senses.
Is this the only example of the stench of a rotten egg in painting?
The Triumph of Bacchus shows her mastery of the male nude at all ages in this mythological scene. It was apparently once described as being too bold to have been painted by a woman.
The woman looking out at the viewer is a self-portrait of her face: yes, I am bold and this is mine.
