Women in art 1400-1800

On this course we will examine a group of immensely talented painters who won enormous international acclaim in their day, and included founder members of the Royal Academy and hugely sought-after portrait painters. We will look at highly esteemed artists who worked at the major European royal courts, others who were some of the greatest flower painters of the Dutch golden age (one of whose paintings sold for considerably more than Rembrandt’s), and painters of altarpieces and exquisite still lifes. The work of these artists hangs in Tate Britain, the National Gallery and other major collections around the world, yet most are not household names. The only thing these artists had in common was that they were all women.
On this course we will discuss how these extraordinary artists achieved so much at times when the odds were so stacked against them. What qualities did these women have? Why was it so difficult to be an artist and a woman at the same time? Why were women artists often restricted to certain genres (subjects)? And why do we hear so little about their work today? The artists whose work we will examine and discuss will include Sofonsiba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, Clara Peeters, Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Leyster, Mary Beale, Rachel Ruysch, Rosalba Carriera, Angelica Kauffmann, Mary Moser and Louise-Marie-Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun and others.