Is Michaelina Wautier the GREATEST Baroque era Painter You Have Never Heard Of?

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:04]A huge warm welcome to Art Gallery Explorer, the vlog which explores and celebrates the London art scene, where I'm back at the Royal Academy to explore the show that you can hopefully just see above my head, Michaelina Wautier. An artist from the Spanish Netherlands to what we know today as Belgium, who has basically, for most of the last few hundred years, been written out of art history. We know very little about her, actually. We think she was born in 1614 and died in 1689, but we're not sure. We know she was born in Mons in what was then the Spanish Netherlands, today Belgium, and that she moved to Brussels with her brother Charles, where they lived near the Royal Court.

[00:00:41]For much of much of history since she painted, many of her paintings were misattributed to her brother, and it's only for a lot of digging that we now know that she was one of the the the really impressive Baroque era artists of the 17th century. I don't know what to expect going into this show, which is on until the 21st of June, so come and join me as we head inside and explore an artist which is new to me, certainly might be new to you as well. I can't wait to dig into this show and see what it it it entails. Come and join me as we head inside.

[00:01:13]This show is quite small and splits into three rooms, um and I'm going to put some music on to accompany the show, um but as always, if it's not your taste, then please do mute or put something that is more to your taste on. And I've chosen um Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, because even though he was produced this after um Michaelina Wautier died um in the next century, it's still part of that artistic Baroque milieu, as was Peter Paul Rubens, who you can see here.

[00:01:46]Other artists are shown as well, most prominently Charles um Wautier, um Michaelina's older brother, who was a crucial part of her being able to practice as an artist in Brussels in the 17th century.

[00:02:08]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Well, I hope you enjoyed that exploration of the Michaelina Wautier show from the Royal Academy in London.

[00:09:24]Um I asked the question in the uh my introduction if she if she's one of the greatest Baroque artists you've never heard of, and she certainly is for me having been in that show. I really enjoyed it. Um it's been one of the highlights of the London art um year for me so far, up there with the Seraph show or the Beatrice Gonzalez show, all for very different reasons. And I think I brought you every single work from the show, so that is a virtual visit, but I do recommend that you go along and see these works with your own eyes before the 21st of June when the show closes at the Royal Academy.

[00:09:57]I always think about these London shows in terms of the good, the bad, and the beautiful. So, in terms of the good, there was a lot to admire about this show, and I'm going to break it down into four different reasons why I really enjoyed it. Firstly, as a woman artist, she was pushing boundaries more than pretty much every other woman artist at this time.

[00:10:17]Um she benefited from the fact that she remained unmarried, so there were less restrictions on on how she could paint.

[00:10:24]And also, because she was living in Brussels and probably shared a studio with her brother Charles, which meant she had access to models, which maybe she would not have had access to if she'd been a solo woman artist practicing on her own. And this meant that she was able to tackle subjects like this, the Triumph of Bacchus, with with nude figures, which would have been totally unacceptable for many women artists of the time. And by the way, the exhibition points out that she puts a cheeky self-portrait into the Triumph of Bacchus on the right-hand side as you look at it. Just have a look at that.

[00:10:57]There is Michaelina Wautier in in in in in in full full gaze staring directly at us. Secondly, um is the quality of the work itself, because to be honest, the quality of the work overshadows the fact that she was a woman artist. Yes, she had to come overcome more barriers than than than a male artist, but the quality of these works are really good. Some of them I would say are very, very good indeed.

[00:11:22]And I really enjoyed looking at them as works of art, starting with this stunning self-portrait. The exhibition makes the point that it was actually women who invented the self-portrait as a as a form. And this self-portrait, where Wautier is looking a bit beyond her, something's caught her eye in the room. Um but very much establishing her reputation as an artist with the paint and the easel.

[00:11:47]And then, she shows off her skills with the pearl necklace and the wonderfully rendered clothes.

[00:11:54]And I love the fact that the exhibition places a self-portrait next to a Rubens self-portrait to show that she stands up to that Flemish master.

[00:12:04]And indeed, whereas Rubens is hiding his identity as as an artist, because he wants to portray himself as a courtier and a diplomat, um Michaelina Wautier is very much saying, "This is who I am."

[00:12:18]And that quality of of art flows through the rest of the exhibition, where she shows herself to be really skilled in a diverse range of subject matter. She's really strong on portraits, particularly portraits of children.

[00:12:32]But also, religious scenes. There's a couple of still lives at the end, which are really good, I thought. And then, the Triumph of Bacchus, this this this this epic, [clears throat] very, very pagan kind of scene at the end. And the art was really strong, and I would say as well, what stood out to me was the human touch and the sensitivity with which she portrayed humans. I just wanted us to zoom in for a second on the Teaching of the Virgin, which shows a really beautifully rendered young Virgin Mary being taught by her parents and the relationship between them, a mother with with her hand on her wrist, and and the kind of wizened face.

[00:13:16]This is a really strong work, and there are many works like this in the exhibition, which bring out that human and also a wonderful sense of humor in works like the Five Senses, which are wonderful works I never even heard of before. I don't know about you, cuz I sometimes find the Flemish Baroque of Van Dyck and Rubens highly skilled, yes, but also a bit overblown, a bit pompous.

[00:13:41]Wautier is the opposite of that. She brings it down to a human scale, and that's why I marveled so much and was so excited by her art. So, that is definitely the second reason why I really enjoyed this show.

[00:13:54]The third reason was because of the art history element. This this felt like a show at the beginning of the rediscovery of Michaelina Wautier in the in the um in the modern world.

[00:14:09]There's been growing interest in her for a few years now. But there's also clearly a huge amount we don't know. And that probably extends to works that are hers, which have been misattributed as well. Because in the past, scholars have misattributed works yesterday her brother Charles, but also to Van Dyck and others. Cuz they couldn't believe that a woman artist could paint could paint with such sensitivity and skill.

[00:14:34]And so, there's a lot more to come, not not just that she died in 1689 aged 75.

[00:14:41]And her last known recorded painting, and it's a bit sketchy, is either 1659 with this one, the Annunciation, or possibly 1660, when she painted a portrait of her brother. So, what happened for those last 30 years? Did she stop painting, or are there just loads of works out there that we don't yet know about?

[00:15:00]And she was lucky because she had um she had a patron in Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, um who ruled the Spanish Netherlands, basically. And his her works are recorded in his collection.

[00:15:16]So, that sense of mystery, that sense of there being more to come, that sense of this being a very much the curation was very clear, like a preliminary exploration, if you like, leads me to hope that there'll be a much bigger show either at the Royal Academy or the or the National Gallery in maybe 5 or 10 years' time, when art historians and scholars have have done more digging, because the works that we saw in this small show were really, really good. So, I enjoyed that art history element as well. In terms of the bad, there was very little bad about this show at all.

[00:15:49]But I have read since that the this show transferred from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in in Vienna.

[00:15:56]And it contained a little bit more documentary evidence. Now, documentary evidence is scant. Will, for example, burned in a fire after her death, and that would have been a really important record of her possessions. But it would have been great to see some documentary evidence. This this exhibition makes the point that we find out of what we know about her from her art.

[00:16:17]But I would have loved a little bit more, and I'm led to believe that the Vienna show did have a little bit of some of the scant evidence, but that's a minor quibble. I still really enjoyed the show.

[00:16:26]And in terms of the beautiful, well, I've mentioned lots of the works already. The self-portrait is magnificent. The Five Senses in the final room is magnificent.

[00:16:37]The Education of the Teaching of the Virgin is a wonderful work. This work of St. Catherine, and obviously the Triumph of Bacchus, and I'd probably have to choose that one, purely because it is one of those grand Baroque paintings, [clears throat] but it is it is also a very powerful message with the self-portrait and the fact that a woman is painting these bodies in this way, these naked bodies in this way. So, overall, this would be the one I would absolutely love, but the self-portrait would come a very close second.

[00:17:08]Overall, you know, I'm going to give this show a 9 out of 10, because I really enjoyed it. It's on until the 21st of June. It's £15 to get in, and it's wonderful to rediscover a a new a new to me artist who's been lost in in in art history.

[00:17:25]And I think we would need a bigger show to establish whether she's up there with the real greats of the Flemish Baroque, but she's certainly got a chance of being. So, do go along if you can do.

[00:17:37]Support the the Royal Academy, and do stay tuned for more shows from from London, from Glasgow, and hopefully beyond as well. And thank you ever so much for watching and for all your comments over recent videos. I do try to respond to them all. And it's been really great to hear opinions on on artists like Hockney and Cecily Brown and others as well.

[00:18:00]Thank you ever so much for watching.