Michaelina Wautier

Interesting exhibition at the Royal Academy focusing on the 17th century artist, Michaelina Wautier.

The modern galleries at Academy had been decorated in dark colours to give an atmosphere contemporary to the art. It began by explaining how Wautier worked with her brother so sometimes their work is indistinguishable from each other and over the years some of her work has been attributed to him.

The first room looked at the pairs' portraits with some lovely examples from each of them. It then moved on to religious and mythical work in rich Baroque colours before focusing on her major work "The Triumph of Bacchus" and other allegorical pieces.

It was lovely to see another female artist being brought into the spotlight as I had done a lecture on the roots of feminist art history in the week however this show also got me thinking about how many artists generally have been forgotten or marginalised in favour of the well-known Old Masters as I had not only not heard of Michaelina but had also not come across her brother Charles.

Closed 21 June 2026


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Evening Standard

https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/exhibitions/michaelina-wautier-royal-academy-review-b1276361.html

 

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