Making Her Mark: A History Of Women Artists In Europe 1400-1800 is an exhibition that is both breathtaking and groundbreaking. It showcases over 230 inspiring art objects.
Co-organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art and Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario, the exhibition continues in Baltimore through January 7, 2024, and opens in Ontario on March 27, 2024.
The question has been asked, "Why are there no great women artists?"
A better question is, "Why were the great women artists left out of art history books?" The answer is tied to the gender of the authors of those books.
In 1971 Linda Nochlin famously offered her insights when ARTnews published "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?", in which she explored the assumptions embedded in the title's question in a groundbreaking essay.
When I studied art history using the required university text, H.W. Janson's "History of Art," not a single woman was named in the 7-pound tome which covered over 500 artists. The book has sold over 4 million copies, that's a lot of incomplete education! First published in 1962, it was 25 years before a modest sprinkling of female artists were added during revising.
This exhibition showcases many of the artists neglected by HIS-tory.
At the entrance to the exhibit, the introductory overview states:
This exhibition presents over 230 works made by European women between 1400 and 1800. Centuries of biographers and historians have categorized artistic women of this era in Europe as rare, less talented than their male counterparts, or disregarded them entirely. This sexist narrative persists. It either casts visually creative women of the past as irrelevant due to their restricted access to formal artistic education or as exceptional if they managed to accomplish professional recognition.
Some painters and sculptors with works on view here did achieve rightfully celebrated careers: Sofonisba Anguissola, Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Leyster, Rachel Ruysch, Luisa Rolda'n, and Elisabeth Louise Vige'e-LeBrun, among others.
Elisabeth Louise Vige'e-LeBrun was one of 18th-century France's most successful portrait painters. Trained by her father at a young age, by the time she was 16, her father had died and she was supporting herself as well as her mother and her younger brother with her art. She earned the patronage as well as the friendship of Marie Antoinette and painted the queen's portrait over 20 times.
Although it is hard for modern day viewers to discern, Vige'e-LeBrun bravely broke established norms in portraiture; the slightly open-mouthed smiles, welcoming gestures and some of the fashions of her sitters were considered scandalous for the time. Vige'e-LeBrun was one of only four women admitted to the prestigious Royal Academy in its 150 year long history. She was prolific; some scholars estimate that Vige'e-LeBrun produced 600-800 paintings.
When Vige'e-LeBrun was painting The Comtesse de Cerès below, the comtesse asked to borrow Vige'e-LeBrun's horses and carriage. Instead of her stated mission, she used it to carry her to an amorous meeting with the French Finance Minister. Since the carriage was seen outside all night, it caused rumors that Vige'e-LeBrun was having the affair and she was not pleased!
Comtesse de Ce'rès by Vige'e-Le Brun, Col. Toledo M of A
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Judith Jans Leyster (1609-1660) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre, portraits and still lifes. She was well-known and popular during her lifetime, but after her death her entire oeuvre was misattributed, either to her artist husband or to Frans Hals.
In 1893, the Louvre discovered her signature on a painting believed for over a century to be by Frans Hals. The painting immediately plummeted in value and initiated a series of lawsuits, with each buyer in succession trying to reclaim his losses from his seller. Germaine Greer noted, "at no time did anyone throw his cap in the air and rejoice that another painter, capable of equalling Hals at his best, had been discovered." However Leyster's work is now appreciated once again.
Self-portrait by Judith Leyster. Col. NGA Wash DC.
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Marie Victoire Lemoine (French, 1754-1820) was a successful artist known for portraiture whose work was accepted into many prestigious exhibitions. She remained unmarried and supported herself through her painting. She lived next door to Vige'e-LeBrun.
Despite efforts to identify the sitter in the painting below, his name is unknown. Proposed identifications have included the Jacobin revolutionary Zamor (1762-1820), trafficked as a child from Bangladesh and enslaved in the household of Comtesse du Barry (1743-1793); as well as Scipio (born c. 1770) or Narcisse (dates unknown), enslaved members of the household of the Duchess d'Orleans (1753-1821), who was a patron of Marie Victoire Lemoine. During this period, wealthy Europeans commonly dressed their enslaved servants in finery, presenting the wearer and their clothes as indicators of the owner's wealth.
One might ask, "Why are People of Color so absent from painting, as either artists or sitters?" and the answer would be the same as the response to the question posed earlier in this article: because it is mostly white males who have written the history books, so this stunning painting was neglected for a host of reasons.
Portrait of a Youth in an Embroidered Vest. Oil. 1785. Marie Victoire Lemoine Col. Cummer Museum
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Fede Galizia (Italian, c. 1578 - c. 1630) was an accomplished artist and one of the earliest painters of fruit still lifes in European art. Her artist-father taught her, and by the time she was twelve, her considerable skills were noticed by other artists. By her late teens she had an international reputation.
Glass Tazza with Peaches, Jasmine Flowers, and Quinces, c. 1607 Oil on panel Fede Galizia (Italian, 1578 - c. 1630) Col. Montreal MFA
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But what of the women who worked in the arts of manuscript illumination, private devotional objects, ceramics, textiles, furniture, printmaking and publishing, silver, glass, and wax?
Or the women who did not subscribe to male-established standards that defined large-scale history painting and sculpture as the pinnacle of artistic achievement?
How do we account for those women whose creative and collaborative labor has gone unrecorded or unacknowledged?
Making Her Mark takes a broader perspective on the question of women's involvement in historical European arts, foregrounding their contributions, even if unidentified, across a wide range of materials, objects, and contexts. Doing so reveals that women participated at every level of artistic production, from sourcing materials to managing workshops.
This diverse presentation of women's creativity aims to reframe our current understanding
of how women of pre-modern Europe made their marks in the history of art.
Illuminated Antiphonie Vol. 4, Eufrasia Burlamacchi (It., 1482 - 1548) c. 1503-1515. Ink, gold, & opaque watercolor on vellum. Col. Dominican Sisters of San Rafael
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Cabinet decorated with Paper Quilling and Watercolor Panels. c. 1789 by Sophia Jane Maria Bonnell and Mary Anne Harvey Bonnell
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Tygress. Wool yarns. c. 1798. Mary Linwood., (after George Stubbs.) Col. Yale.
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Shock Dog. c.1782. Marble. Artist: Anne Seymour Damer (Eng. 1748 - 1828) Col. MET
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Detail and insert: English manor house and gardens, 1707. Knife-cut cut-paper work, pin pricking, collage, ink on a vellum backing, by Anna Maria Garthwaite (British, 1688 - 1763)
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Embroidered Drawn Net Bed Valance with Bobbin Lace Border. 1766-1833 Russia. Linen. Artist unknown. Col. Cone
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In an age when hard labor and toxic chemicals were common in artistic production, many wives of craftsmen and artisans found themselves widowed, often at an early age.
Since women generally were prohibited from independently registering a business in their own names, the death of a husband presented an opportunity for a widow to continue the workshop's production, often with a greater degree of freedom. By the early 18th century, ten to twenty percent of households and businesses in London, England, were headed by widows.
Scholars traditionally have dismissed the creative and entrepreneurial contributions of widows who ran workshops after the death of their husbands.
But widow managers frequently brought an increased degree of business savvy to the enterprise, introducing new design sources and workers and expanding distribution of their products through strategic partnerships and advertisement. Some even intertwined their identities with their product, establishing name brands that promoted their status as widows.
All the silver works below were produced under the maker marks of silversmith widows. While married, these women worked alongside their husbands, both in the business of supporting a family workshop and in the process of creating, some of them were daughters of silversmiths as well. After their husbands' deaths, these widows were allowed to register their own marks so they could continue to run their businesses.
Apollo and Attendants Flaying Marsyas, c. 1662. Wool, silk, tapestry weave, Weaver: Maria Maddalena della Riviera (Italian, 1611 - 1676)
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Maria Luisa Caterina Cecilia Cosway (1760-1838) was an accomplished Italian-English painter, especially of miniature portraits. She was also a composer, musician, educator and society hostess. Her marriage to a philandering husband twice her age, who at first was quite unsupportive of her art, has been considered largely a marriage of convenience.
When Cosway met the widowed Thomas Jefferson, there was an immediate attraction and clear romantic interest, although since Jefferson was so discreet, the exact nature of their relationship is not known for sure. They spent much time together when he was in Paris, kept up a lifelong correspondance over 40 years, and each owned a portrait of the other.
Cosway introduced Jefferson to her friend Angelica Schuyler Church, the sister-in-law of his rival Alexander Hamilton. Church, Jefferson and Cosway all corresponded regularly all their lives. When Church died, Cosway designed a ceiling depicting the Three Graces to memorialize her friend.
Home Industry. 1800. Pen and ink, wash, white heightening on paper. Maria Cosway.
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Rosalba Carriera (Italian, 1673-1757) began her career by painting miniature portraits and scenes on ivory and tortoise shell for snuff box lids, pioneering some of the ivory painting techniques which became popular. She was a member of Rome's Accademia di San Luca and she produced commissions for royalty.
Carriera fell in love with pastels, which, at the time, were an art material that commanded about as much respect as kids' crayons do, today. Due to her expertise in the medium, she singlehandedly raised appreciation of the medium to its accepted place in fine art.
Anna Maria van Schurman (Dutch, 1607-1678) was highly educated as a painter, engraver, poet, classical scholar, philosopher, musician, and feminist writer. She spoke fourteen languages and was the first woman to unofficially study at a Dutch university. Her book "The learned maid; or, Whether a maid may be a scholar?: A logick exercise" was published in 1659 based on her correspondence with other philosophers in Europe. Her self-portrait (an etching) appears as a frontispiece.
Sarah Biffen (1784-1850) was an award-winning miniature painter who painted portraits of the British Royal family and exhibited with the Royal Academy in spite of the fact that she was born with no arms and undeveloped legs - a result of the congenital condition phocomelia. She held the brush in her mouth to paint, and was able to take private painting lessons as a teen. Charles Dickens mentioned her in three of his novels.
Marguerite Ge'rard (French, 1761-1837) was a successful professional artist working in Paris who counted Napoleon and King Louis XVII among her patrons. Although not an Academician like her friend and fellow artist Elizabeth Vige'e-LeBrun, she exhibited regularly once the Salons were opened to women in the 1790s and was active in artistic circles, in part through her brother-in-law, the painter Jean-Honore' Fragonard. Her work was inspired by both contemporary French painting and Dutch genre scenes, depicting women at work in their own domestic environments.
In the workbox below, the inclusion of both fine embroidery tools and a tray with stone mixing palette for watercolors suggests the owner was a woman working in more than one media. Drawing, watercolor, and embroidery were skills that women were expected to learn and by the 18th century, specialty suppliers produced commercially available pastel sticks and watercolor supplies, along with wooden workboxes with fitted compartments for holding pigments, brushes, and other tools.
A George III Satinwood Combination Sewing and Painting Box c. 1800 Wood, satin fabric, metal tools for sewing and watercolor pigment blocks, stone, glass, and ceramic
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Landscape Painter at her Easel. c. 1837. Fanny Guillaume de Bassoncourt, Baronne de Molaret (French, 1820 - 1888)
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A word to those who plan to visit the exhibition: I expected two hours to be enough time to enjoy this exhibit, I was wrong. I spent over three hours, and still had to leave much earlier than I wanted. If I could do it again, I'd view the exhibition for a couple of hours, get some lunch in the cafe while resting my feet, and then return to the exhibition for a couple more hours.
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Making Her Mark: A History Of Women Artists In Europe 1400-1800 was co-curated by Dr. Alexa Greist, AGO Curator and R. Fraser Elliott Chair, Prints & Drawings and Dr. Andaleeb Banta, BMA Senior Curator and Department Head, Prints, Drawings & Photographs. The decision to exclusively display objects made by women makes this exhibition unique, and among the first to put women makers of various levels of society in conversation with each other, across centuries and a continent, through their artworks.
Founded in 1914, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) has a collection of more than 97,000 objects which span many eras and cultures. It includes the world's largest public holding of works by Henri Matisse; one of the nation's finest collections of prints, drawings, and photographs; and a rapidly growing number of works by contemporary artists of diverse backgrounds. The museum is also distinguished by a neoclassical building designed by American architect John Russell Pope and two beautifully landscaped gardens featuring an array of modern and contemporary sculpture. The BMA is adjacent to the main campus of Johns Hopkins University.
General admission to the BMA is free; special exhibitions such as this one require an entrance fee. The BMA is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours on Thursdays until 9 p.m. The Sculpture Gardens are open Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to dusk. The BMA is located at 10 Art Museum Drive, three miles north of Baltimore's Inner Harbor. For general museum information, call 443-573-1700 or visit artbma.org.
The Art Gallery of Ontario is one of the largest museums in North America, with a collection of more than 120,000 artworks. It is located at 317 Dundas St. W, Toronto, ON M5T 1G4. The museum opens Tuesday through Sunday at 10:30 am, and closes at 5 pm on Tuesday and Thursday, 9 pm on Wednesday and Friday, and 5:30 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Admission is free on Wednesday evenings from 6-9pm.
Established in 1900, the Art Gallery of Ontario is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located at 317 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5T 1G4. The building complex takes up 45,000 square meters of physical space, making it one of the largest art museums in North America. It opens Tuesday through Sunday at 10:30 am, closing at 5 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9 pm on Wednesdays and Fridays, and 5:30 pm on Saturdays and Sundays. Wednesday evenings are free from 6-9 pm.
