A Long-Forgotten 17th-Century Flemish Master Is Finally Getting the Attention She Deserves

For the first time, nearly all of Baroque painter Michaelina Wautier’s works will be exhibited together

Ella Feldman – Daily Correspondent

Some of history’s greatest artists weren’t discovered until after their time. Johannes Vermeer wasn’t celebrated as a 17th-century Dutch master until art historians rediscovered his work in the 1860s. Vincent van Gogh only became world-famous years after his death in 1890.

But it’s taken more than three centuries for Michaelina Wautier, a 17th-century female Flemish Baroque painter and the subject of a new exhibition at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, to be recognized as an old master.

“Michaelina Wautier, Painter” marks the first time in history that so many of Wautier’s paintings have been displayed together. The exhibition features almost all of her known works, including 29 paintings, a drawing and a print, per ARTnews’ Leigh Anne Miller.

The collection’s crown jewel is The Triumph of Bacchus, a large-scale oil painting of half-robed bodies surrounding the god of wine. The piece was rediscovered in 1993 by Belgian art historian Katlijne Van der Stighelen in the Kunsthistorisches Museum’s archives, per the Guardian’s Philip Oltermann. In town for a conference, Van der Stighelen was visiting the museum to look at a different painting by Anthony van Dyck when the work of revelry caught her eye.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Van der Stighelen tells the Guardian. “I really know my way around Flemish paintings from the 17th century, but when I saw this picture I could not match it with anything I knew.”

The museum’s archivist told Van der Stighelen that the painting was thought to have been the work of a woman, which set the art historian off on a three-decade journey to learn more about the artist’s identity. In 2018, she curated “Michaelina: Baroque’s Leading Lady” at the Museum aan de Stroom in Antwerp, Belgium, which helped raise the forgotten artist’s profile.

Van der Stighelen contributed to the catalog for “Michaelina Wautier, Painter,” which was curated by Gerlinde Gruber, per the New York Times’ Valeriya Safronova.

In the past, Wautier’s paintings have often been attributed to her male contemporaries, including her brother, Charles Wautier. That’s despite the fact that around half of her 35 surviving works bear her signature.

“She’s a Flemish Baroque painter, a woman, and for many years people didn’t believe that the canvases done by her were by her,” Jonathan Fine, the Kunsthistorisches’ director general, tells the Times.Report This Ad

Very little is known about Wautier’s life, as very few primary documents about her survive. Instead, researchers have had to rely on the paintings themselves. That includes analyzing her works via X-rays and infrared and ultraviolet light, per the Times.

Quick fact: The timeline of Wautier’s life

Historians think the artist was born in Mons, Belgium, in 1604 and began her artistic career when she was in her 30s. 

In Wautier’s time, women were not allowed to enroll in art academies, but experts say her work is so advanced that she must have received some kind of formal training, the Guardian reports. It’s possible that training came from her brother, who was also a painter.

The Triumph of Bacchus makes Wautier the first known woman to have made a life-size painting of a nude man. It also suggests that she was able to study nude male bodies up close, perhaps in her brother’s studio.

“When you look at Wautier’s paintings, it’s immediately evident that she knew what the body was,” Van der Stighelen tells the Guardian. “When you look at the variety of ages, skin colors and hair textures in the Bacchus painting, it’s impossible that she worked purely off plaster copies. She must have had the opportunity to draw and paint from life.”Report This Ad

On the far right of the painting, a woman in a pink garment looks directly at the viewer, with one of her breasts exposed. Some scholars think that Wautier based this figure on herself.

“She was really bold,” Kirsten Derks, an art historian at the University of Antwerp who has studied Wautier for years, tells the Times. “She included a self-portrait in that painting with her boob hanging out. I don’t know of any other artist who would dare to do that.”

Another highlight of “Michaelina Wautier, Painter” is the Five Senses series. Across five paintings, Wautier depicts young boys using their senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. The collection also includes a detailed painting of a colorful flower garland and a self-portrait of the painter by her easel.

Wautier is one of many female artists whose contributions have been overlooked throughout history. Another new exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. spotlights some of those artists, including Johanna Koerten, Judith Leyster and Clara Peeters.

But the size, breadth and artistry found in Wautier’s paintings make her work unique.

“For female Baroque artists to work on this scale and with this variety of subjects is completely unseen,” Van der Stighelen tells the Guardian. “You had excellent women artists at the time painting flowers or still lifes, but in general they were much smaller than those produced by men, largely due to the fact that they didn’t have their own workshops. Wautier is a complete exception to the rule.”

“Michaelina Wautier, Painter” is on view at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna through February 22, 2026.