'Too Bold to Have Been Painted by a Woman'

So the question to ask about the Michaelina Wautier exhibition at the Royal Academy in London must be: Is the hype about this recently rediscovered 17th-century woman painter justified? The answer: Yes, absolutely. 

She really does merit acknowledgement -- and not just because we recognise a woman working in a man's world. Her art shows she was extremely talented, producing superb canvases covering a diverse range of subject matter. What's more, she painted very large pictures featuring male nudes, such as Bacchus, despite her contemporaries thinking that was not the sort of thing a female artist could do. And her portraits are wonderfully lively and lifelike.

This is Martino Martini, an Italian Jesuit missionary who travelled to China in the 1640s. It was painted in 1654, when Michaelina was around 40. Martini, who was staying at the Jesuit College in Brussels, is depicted wearing traditional Chinese silk court attire and a hat of fur and feathers. A rather substantial fellow with a great beard. He's not looking at us but his eyes really do draw our attention. It's something you can't miss throughout this show -- the eyes, contributing greatly to the vivacity of Wautier's portraiture.  

The first painting you come across in the exhibition is how Michaelina saw herself about four years earlier in a Self-Portrait. Wautier is at the easel with her palette, just beginning a picture -- the canvas really is bare, a neat trick -- but even though she's working, she wears a white silk dress and pearls that today we might think look more appropriate for a meeting with lady friends in 17th-century Brussels. The refinement of her garments shows her social status as well as her professional standing, and it underlines how skilled she was at depicting textures, fabrics and objects; the pearls catch the light. 

Judith Leyster had painted herself in her finery at the easel a couple of decades before, as we saw recently in the show of often forgotten 17th- and 18th-century Dutch and Flemish female artists at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent. But Wautier's is a big self-portrait, bigger than any we saw there. Perhaps fitting, because of all the pictures we saw in Ghent, Wautier's painting of Two Girls as Saints Agnes and Dorothea was probably the star turn.

It's only in the last couple of decades that Wautier has been rescued from obscurity. Her paintings were hidden away, or attributed to other artists, such as her brother Charles. We know she was born in Mons in the Spanish Netherlands in about 1614, we know she worked in Brussels along with Charles in the 1640s and 1650s, and we know that some of her paintings were acquired by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, who later took them back to Vienna with him. But apart from that, there are few records of her life. She was written out of art history.

But what an omission, because it's the vivacity and realism in her pictures that truly impresses. In her portraits, as we saw with Martini, there's a glint in the eyes of her sitters. We noticed the iris in each eye seems slightly different. Just look at the wrinkles, especially on the brows, and the double chin in the Portrait of a Military Commander (Pierre Wautier?), from about 1660. It's presumed to be one of Wautier's brothers, who served as a cavalry captain in the Spanish army. But there's no flattery here.... this is the real man. 

Sadly, the fine details can't be fully appreciated in our photos. But when you see the painting close up, you notice the different textures in the commander's outfit. The white collar looks like it is made of delicate fabric, and in the sheen of the armour are reflections of what was behind him -- just as you would expect from the metalwork. Wautier has recreated in paint the fine twisted edge round the armhole and that fancy red and gold trim at the bottom edge of the painting. And that sleeve -- the bulges look like thick leather, yet the surface has that softness of suede. And on top of that, there's a sense of drama and immediacy in the pose.

And here's another man whose face looks as if he has just been caught on camera.

The wrinkles on his forehead, those penetrating eyes and the immediacy of his pose look so natural. Then you notice the individual hairs of the fur on the bag slung over his back and the ornate gold pattern on the red straps. Carved into the rock behind him is the inscription "Rachel vaut bien la peine" -- "Rachel is well worth the effort" -- identifying him with Jacob from the Biblical Book of Genesis, who had to work as a shepherd for 14 years before being able to marry Rachel, his beloved. There's no known precedent in art for this, a "historicised portrait" of Jacob, which may well refer to the sitter's own tale of a lengthy love story.  

So Wautier showed that not only did she have the skill, she had the creativity to be original. "Invenit et fecit," as she would sign other history paintings, such as The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine or The Education of the Virgin. Now, though we're not big fans of religious paintings in general, we did appreciate the liveliness of Wautier's young Mary in the latter. Another painting, The Annunciation, Wautier's last-known dated work, is rather more Baroque; what's troubling is that her prominently placed signature was painted over and only revealed during conservation in 1983.

Wautier's portrayals of children are quite stunning. We were much taken by Boys Blowing Bubbles, her version of the popular theme symbolising the fragility of life. Here, the eyes have it again, with the lad on the right fixed intently on the bubble, setting a fine example for players of ball sports centuries later.

These two faces reappear in one of Wautier's most distinctive works, The Five Senses, which only resurfaced at auction in 2019. Five light-hearted depictions of childhood, the series has helped provide insights into Wautier's methods; she worked quickly in oil, often applying successive strokes of paint that mixed on the canvas. She blended colours to provide an optical illusion of blue instead of relying on costly blue pigment. 

The egg in this boy's left hand hints at which sense this is portraying. But just in case you miss that clue, the cute-faced lad holds his nose.  

And there's no prize for identifying the sense below. Another butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth youngster is about to eat a slice of bread with a "tasty" topping on it.

The climax of the exhibition is the sort of picture that was thought to be "too bold" for a woman to paint. The Triumph of Bacchus is her biggest and most ambitious work; well, as far as we know to date. And it is big: 270 by 354 cm. You really are struck by the size as you approach it. 

One would not have expected female artists to be painting male nudes in the 17th century. Back in 1903, Gustav Glück, later to become the first curator of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, said that "even in our age of female emancipation, one would hardly wish to ascribe this picture, which shows a highly vigorous, almost coarse conception, to a woman's hand."

Yet here it is, full of naked or near-naked men, with Bacchus's modesty (or the viewer's modesty, to be more accurate) preserved by a strategically placed vine leaf. And looking straight out at you from the right-hand side, the only character facing the audience in this Bacchanalian revel, is Michaelina Wautier herself. It's pretty astonishing.

Now, the one thing you don't get in this show is the amazing story of how Wautier has been recovered from oblivion. It was in 1993 that Belgian art historian Katlijne van der Stighelen found The Triumph of Bacchus lying on the floor of the storehouse of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. She has spent three decades tracking down her works. We'd have liked to read a bit more of that in the exhibition, but strangely it's not much touched on. Odd, that. 

Since her rediscovery, Wautier has sometimes been compared with the greatest woman artist of the Baroque, Artemisia Gentileschi. We thought she was certainly a much more interesting portrait painter than Artemisia. Better overall? You'll have to go along to the Royal Academy to make up your own mind. 

Practicalities

Michaelina Wautier is on at the Royal Academy on Piccadilly in central London until June 21. It's open Tuesday to Sunday from 1000 to 1800, extended on Friday until 2100. Sunday mornings are apparently among the quietest times to visit. Full-price tickets are £17.50 including a Gift Aid donation, £15 without. You can book in advance here. Allow a good 75 minutes to take this show in fully. The RA is a few minutes' walk from Green Park and Piccadilly Circus Tube stations.

Images

Michaelina Wautier (c. 1614-1689), Portrait of Martino Martini, 1654, The Klesch Collection 

Michaelina Wautier, Portrait of a Military Commander (Pierre Wautier?), about 1660, Private collection 

Michaelina Wautier, Portrait of a Man as the Biblical Jacob, about 1655, Private collection

Michaelina Wautier, Boys Blowing Bubbles, about 1650-55, Seattle Art Museum 
Michaelina Wautier, Smell, 1650, Rose-Marie and Eijk Van Otterloo Collection
Michaelina Wautier, Taste, 1650, Rose-Marie and Eijk Van Otterloo Collection

Michaelina Wautier, The Triumph of Bacchus, c. 1655-59, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Photo: © KHM-Museumsverband