Maria van Oosterwijck, Vanitas Still Life, oil on canvas, 29” x 35”, 1668. Photo Wikimedia Commons.
Examine, if you will, the striking painting illustrated above. It was painted by Maria van Oosterwijck, one of the most talented and successful artists in the Netherlands in the 17th century. It greets the visitor in the first gallery of the extraordinary exhibition now on view at the National Museum of Women in the Arts through early January 2026. In many ways, Oosterwijck’s Vanitas Still Life on the right and Judith Leyster’s confident Self-Portrait on the left of the wall facing the entrance are a fine introduction to the work and the historical context of this self-evidently didactic presentation of the art and activities of women in the region during this period. The Oosterwijck is possibly the highest quality and most interesting painting in the show, yet it is not surprising that, unless an art history student had specialized in the art of the region and period in graduate studies, her name would be unknown, until now.
This was, in fact, one of the main factors that led senior curator Virginia Treanor to envision taking on this ambitious project which, with the help of co-curator Frederica van Dam of the Musem of Fine Arts Ghent, would take five years to realize. Having a doctoral degree in the subject of Netherlandish Baroque art, Treanor was already aware of the dearth of research on the role of women, from the lower to middle and higher classes of society in participating in and supporting the extraordinary expansion of fine art and crafts produced during it. The exhibit set out to right this historical imbalance.
The Low Countries, including the modern Netherlands and Belgium (then Flanders), had achieved an unprecedented level of prosperity and wealth in the course of the seventeenth century. While Flanders remained Catholic, the Dutch Republic was majority Protestant. Established in 1588, it invented itself as a nation and attaining this newfound wealth, with its plethora of available luxuries, struggled to reconcile this with the strict morality of Calvinist beliefs, living in constant dread of transgression. Hence the popularity of the vanitas theme in their art. As they could not paint religious subjects, this was mostly carried out in symbolic still lifes, like Oosterwijck’s. For example, the above picture has multiple references to the shortness of the pleasures of life, including beauty–butterflies live in beauty for a short time, then die, flowers,the books and the star globe that allude to the vanity of scholars and authorship, as well as of astrology, the accounting book in the center and the money bag refering to wealth, none of which do anything to save the soul or avoid death symbolized by the skull and the salt timer.
Maria van Oosterwijck was herself the daughter of a clergyman and was described by one historian as “modest and exceptionally religious”.[1] A portrait of her, hung near her vanitas, shows her richly, but conservatively dressed, a palette and brushes in her left hand, and an open Bible on her lap. The silk clothing was intended to underline her social status, and indeed it was women from among the newly wealthy upper classes who had the time and luxury to be a painter.
Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait, oil on canvas, 29 3/8” x 26 5/8”, c. 1630. Photo Wikimedia Commons.
Judith Leyster is among a handful of known names from the period, appearing as a nod to the presence of Dutch women painters of the period in survey art history texts. Nevertheless, the Self-Portrait exhibited here was not firmly attributed to her until it entered the National Gallery of Art in 1959! And the first attribution of a painting to her, rather than to Frans Hals or a list of other men, was only in 1893—not that this opened the way for her work in the art market until some time later. Following the Dutch “golden age” of women’s full participation in the art of painting, women’s work was typically attributed to men to make it saleable. This exhibition clearly demonstrates how unique the situation was, especially in the northern Netherlands, that made it possible for women like Oosterwijck or Leyster to have artistic careers in the first place. Women in contemporary Italy or Spain didn’t have a fraction of this kind of autonomy of choice, especially those in the upper and aristocratic classes.
Maria Schalcken, Self-Portrait in her Studio, oil on panel, 17 3/8” x 13 3/8”, c. 1680. Photo courtesy NMWA. The artist’s first name was later erased from her signature to make her painting more saleable. It was attributed to her brother, also an artist.
Leyster, like the later Maria Schalcken whose delicately painted self-portrait hangs near Leyster’s, presents herself smiling and relaxed. Both women show themselves as artists sitting in front of an easel, an unfinished painting on it, holding palette and brushes–Schalcken with a painting stick used to steady the arm. Both are seated in an armchair, leaning back with an elbow resting on the chair. And both are wearing fancy clothing that in reality they would never be wearing while painting! As mentioned above, their clothing, especially the extremely large lace collar Leyster wears, is meant to show their social status, but also that by their art, they can afford to dress this way and to even be casual about it.
Anna Maria van Schurman, Self-Portrait, engraving on paper, 8 ½”x6 ¼ “, 1640. Photo NMWA.
Anna Maria van Schurman was also a woman from the wealthy upper class who excelled as a painter and engraver, but who was moreover a phenomenal example of the level of female autonomy and possibility that existed in the Netherlands in that time period. She was a poet, a classical scholar who could read and write in Latin. She had mastery of as many as fourteen languages, was a philosophic and feminist writer who was known not only for her own learning, but as an ardent defender of the education of women. Among her many extraordinary talents was the art of paper cutting in which intricate patterns were cut into paper using a pointed knife. One of her paper-cuts is in the exhibit—don’t miss it. In fact, women were known for this particular art form and there are a few other examples in the exhibit that are all remarkable.
Unidentified artist (or artists), Sleeve fragment of bobbin lace, linen, 13 ½” x 11 ½“, Flemish, 1740-50. Photo NMWA.
Even more remarkable are the examples of lace making, an art carried out almost exclusively by women and girls, especially in Flanders. Hand-made bobbin lace is an excruciatingly slow and difficult thing to make, and it was made primarily by women in the lower classes. Nevertheless, it was highly prized, expensive, and a major export product supporting the economy. To give the viewer an idea of how difficult and time consuming this work was, the exhibit includes a time-lapse video of making a simple strip of bobbin lace, from spinning the bobbin to attaching it to a hard surface with pins to weave the thread around into patterns.
Installation photo: Video showing bobbin lace making collapsing the 11 hours it took to make a small strip. An example of Antwerp lace is in the vitrine. Photo NMWA.
Quiringh van Brekelenkam, Interior with a Woman Teaching Three Girls Lacemaking, oil on panel, 24 ½” x 34”, 1654. Photo NMWA.
Next to the video is a painting by Quiringh van Brekelenkam showing a woman teaching three young girls bobbin lacemaking. Note that they’re doing this work by daylight alone which, in that climate, was never very strong!
Small hands made the work slightly easier, so the art was taught to very young children. In Antwerp, poor girls and orphans were set to make lace on their laps in a sort of factory-like arrangement, testifying again to the importance of this product to the overall economy. A painting by Johannes de Maré of the orphanage for girls, the Maagdenhuis in Antwerp, documents this arrangement and gives an idea of what it meant in their daily lives.
Johannes de Maré, Portrait of Franciscus van Hildernissen and his Wife Catherina de Coninck and Orphans in the Maiden’s House, oil on canvas, 100” x 90”, 1676. Photo NMWA.
The Maagdenhuis benefactor, Franciscus van Hildernissen, stands in the foreground with his wife. Smiling, and holding a purse of money in his left hand, he holds out his right to welcome a poor couple’s daughter into the house, while another couple begs to allow them to leave their little girl there. In the background, in smaller proportion, there are rows of benches with the girls holding their lace making on their laps. A large painting of the Virgin and Child and the Infant St. John the Baptist hangs over them.
Apart from portraits, most women artists specialized in still lifes, particularly in flower paintings which, from their number, would seem to have been in every wealthy home. It would be fair to say that these flowers weren’t so marketable because they were pretty. Very nearly every one of these is effectively a vanitas. A number are in the exhibit, including works by Clara Peeters (1587-c.1637), Maria van Oosterwijck (1630-1693), and Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750). Thus, with examples from the entire period of the show, the consistency of the vanitas theme is remarkable.
Rachel Ruysch, Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies and other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge, oil on canvas, 42 ½” x 33”, c. 1680. Photo NMWA.
A work by Ruysch from the NMWA collection shows a large bouquet of various flowers and leaves in an urn set in a stone ledge. At first glance they look beautiful, illuminated against a dark background. And indeed, flowers are beautiful and have a lovely scent. But look closer. Their beauty is short-lived. Many of them are drooping or curling up as they begin to die. And looking even closer you can see that the bouquet is infested with moths and spiders and other insects signifying death and corruption. The urn itself (not a vase) is an ancient symbol of death, emphasized by its placement on a stone slab.
One could go on, but my point is to make it clear that the main interest in this show is its teaching aspect, aiming to unearth much about women artists, the period and its mores. In this effort, it more than succeeds, and stands as an unusually important contribution to this history.
Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750, National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Ave. NW, Washington DC 20005. Tuesday-Sunday 10 – 5, 202-783-5000. More information can be found on the museum’s website here. On view from September 26, 2025 to January 11, 2026.
The exhibit will travel to the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium from March 7 through May 31, 2026 with some added works that could not be lent.
[1] Judith Noorman, “A Female Clientele” in Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750, Exh. Cat., NMWA, Washington DC and Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, p. 163. The catalogue is especially rich in new research into this material. Noorman’s essay demonstrates the role of women as collectors as well as artists.
