The Royal Academy in Piccadilly is a rabbit warren of a building with numerous galleries large and small, on various floors, at the back and front. Currently the huge main galleries are taken up with the blockbuster Rose Wylie exhibition (which, I’m afraid to say, I think is tripe). Meanwhile, up two flights of stairs (or via the shiny glass and steel lift) are the much smaller, more intimate, Jillian and Arthur M. Sackler Wing of Galleries.
These are currently hosting a lovely three-room exhibition of little-known 17th century woman painter, Michaelina Wautier (1604 to 1689). It is based on one simple idea: active in Brussels in the middle of the 17th century, Michaelina Wautier was a leading painter of her time, certainly one of the most eminent female painters of her day, but soon after her death her reputation went into eclipse and for the last 300 years or so she has been written out of the art history books by a male art history establishment, with most of her work attributed to contemporary male painters, most notably her brother Charles who was also a successful painter.
In the last few decades, feminist scholars have been rediscovering Wautier; art experts have been using forensic techniques to reattribute works to her and even to identify parts of paintings previously attributed to her brother, to her (all the evidence suggests that they shared and worked together in the same studio).
This exhibition presents the most comprehensive survey of Wautier’s work to date, bringing together 25 paintings from across her career.
Room 1. Historical context
Room 1 contains 11 paintings and a print. To my surprise, of these 11 paintings only 5 were by Michaelina. I don’t think it’s anywhere explicitly stated but after studying them all I came to realise the aim was to place Wautier in her artistic and historical context. In art historical terms, this explains the presence of a 1638 self portrait by Peter Paul Rubens. Among other things this is used to contrast the way Rubens presents himself sumptuously dressed in black in the manner of a courtier or diplomat, with none of the attributes of his own profession – unlike Wautier who, in the large self portrait here, depicts herself at the easel.
Self-portrait by Michaelina Wautier (around 1650) Private collection
For historical context there are portraits of:
- Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria by David Teniers the Younger (1610 to 1690) – because he was a major art collector and Michaelina Wautier’s most important patron
- James II when Duke of York by Michaelina’s brother, Charles Wautier (1609 to 1703)
The overall effect of this room is to lower your expectations. Not many paintings in it are real humdingers; most are OK, some feel poor, meaning they are gawky compositions or fail to be persuasively realistic.
Room 2. Historical subjects
The wall labels make a very big deal of the fact that Wautier was a woman artist, repeatedly emphasising the sexism, prejudice and discrimination she had to put up with and work against. The highest genre of art was considered historical or allegorical painting and women were supposed to restrict themselves to the much more lowly subjects of portraits and flowers. The point of historical and religious paintings was to display the artist’s skill at composition, at the arrangement of figures, the effects of light, details of fabric and so on – and it was widely believed that women lacked the imagination and intellect to create such complex images (!).
So this room displays some very big historical/allegorical paintings which she was either wholly or partly responsible for, as emphatic disproof of this ludicrously sexist opinion.
It contains 8 generally pretty large oil paintings, 5 by Michaelina, three by brother Charles, with scholars debating whether she did, or didn’t contribute some elements to Charles’s ones. Here’s one which was for centuries attributed to Charles but has, in recent decades, now been at least partially reassigned to Michaelina. As the curators put it: ‘The extent to which Michaelina Wautier may have collaborated with her brother on large commissions such as this is still uncertain, but it has been suggested that the boy with the book and Christ may have been painted by her.’
The Calling of St Matthew by Charles and Michaelina Wautier (1650-60)
The trouble is the face of Christ is easily the worst/least realistic thing about this painting. The boy’s face is good and does feel somehow different from the three older characters. But after staring at the whole for a while, I came to realise the thing which gave me the most visual pleasure was the vivid realism of the array of objects on the table, the bag, coins, little box, penholder, book and notes. these are marvellously rendered.
Detail of The Calling of St Matthew by Charles and Michaelina Wautier (1650-60)
In the same way, I didn’t like the other large paintings in this room:
Or the education of the Virgin. They’re good, very goo, but there are always details, generally about the faces, which are jarringly unrealistic, unnaturalistic, fail the test of full believability, such as the old boy’s face in the Education, below. So many of the details – the composition, the hands, the light on the fabrics – are superb, and yet, and yet…
The Education of the Virgin by Michaelina Wautier (1656) Private collection, by courtesy of the Hoogsteder Museum Foundation
(Incidentally, if you think the Annunciation looks like a completely different style, you’d be right. The curators explain that it is far more ‘baroque’, meaning the figures are more smoothed out and simplified than in almost all her other work, which is more ruggedly naturalistic. It’s thought this must have been deliberate catering to a rich patron who wanted a work in the new ‘smooth’ style.)
What I did find myself increasingly attracted to was her portraits of old men. There’s a pair of portraits of St Joachim Reading and St Joseph, and I found these character studies of wrinkled old men persuasive and moving, particularly Joseph’s odd pose, turning loftily away from the frame. For some reason he reminded me of Tolstoy. Old men she’s good at, and books: books and old men.
Room 3. Senses and Bacchus
The third and final room contains some of her best works which have been displayed here as showstoppers.
1. The senses
Along one wall is the set of five paintings of boys depicted in actions which represent the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch). These are light and playful and charming.
Installation view of Michaelina Wautier at the Royal Academy showing the Five Senses
There’s a simple piece of fun to be had here which is to choose your favourite from the five. My friend’s favourite was second from right, the boy wrinkling his nose because he’s just cut himself with a knife (touch). For me the obvious winner is the one in the middle, smell, showing a boy holding his nose having just opened a rotten egg. It struck me as technically perfect in every way, so much so that it reminded me of the later, sentimental paintings of boys and girls and dogs by John Everett Millais.
Smell by Michaelina Wautier (1650) Rose-Marie and Eijk Van Otterloo Collection
2. The Triumph of Bacchus
Assigned pride of place on the end wall of this final room, and thus the climax of the entire show, is an enormous scene from the classical world, The Triumph of Bacchus.
The Triumph of Bacchus by Michaelina Wautier (1655–59) Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Picture Gallery. Photo: © KHM-Museumsverband
I don’t generally like these kinds of works, even when they’re done by masters of the genre such as Rubens, because they’re generally such dog’s dinners. What I mean is that – I dare say we’re meant to be admiring the masterly treatment of the subject, disposition of the figures and so on – but my eye tends to go straight to the elements which are sub-par and fail the basic test of verisimilitude.
And so in this huge painting, after registering the overall flow of the shapes, I notice that Bacchus’s head is too small, and at an anatomically improbably angle; the boy sitting on the ram on the far right, his head is too small and his face is that of a 4-year-old on a 10-year-old’s body. The face of the central figure holding the grapes over Bacchus’s mouth is poor. The head of the boy behind his bottom looks deformed, and so on.
That said, the central figure of the bog old muscular tanned satyr holding the handles of the wheelbarrow contraption Bacchus is sprawled in, his half naked body, shoulders and head are all very well done.
The woman on the right is, according to the curators, a self-portrait of Wautier herself. This is sort of interesting but when you survey this huge painting in the flesh, her face looks as if it’s been badly Photoshopped onto someone else’s body. Also, maybe I shouldn’t say this, but she doesn’t have any boobs. My boobs are bigger than the one on show here.
Then again, the curators note this point and speculate whether she was trying to achieve an androgynous effect?
In her most famous painting, she painted herself as a pagan bacchante in monumental scale, looking squarely at the viewer and confidently asserting her position as the maker.
Or is it just a bad bit of a patchy painting. Anyway, the scale and ambition are very impressive and it makes a fitting climax.
Details
Here, as in all the other large paintings, it was particular details which struck me. In Bacchus, it’s the goat, brilliantly painted, not totally convincing, unnerving
Detail of The Triumph of Bacchus by Michaelina Wautier (1655–59) Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Picture Gallery. Photo: © KHM-Museumsverband
The same applies to a pair of flower paintings she did. Still life paintings of flowers are a super-abundant genre in Old Master painting. Here the flowers aren’t in vases, as per the cliché, but a little more interestingly arranged in garlands such as Wautier might have seen on classical urns and vases. But the thing which caught my eye was the ox skulls, yes, the skulls of dead oxes, placed at each edge of the painting and bisected i.e. you only see half of each skull. These, I thought, were brilliantly painted, and vividly weird.
Detail of Flower Garland with a Dragonfly by Michaelina Wautier (1652)
In the same spirit, there’s another painting of boys blowing bubbles, which is good but, again, doesn’t totally convince, I think because the boy on the right’s face is not quite… there’s just something subtly ‘off’ about it. And yet when you go closer and look at the details – the incredible texture of the old wrinkled book, the skull, the boy’s cuff and buttons, the bubble itself, the hand and the scallop shell it’s holding – these are breath-taking.
Detail of Boys Blowing Bubbles by Michaelina Wautier (about 1650-1655)
Summary
This is a really good exhibition, lovingly staged, carefully explained, in the good cause of restoring an unjustly neglected master artist – all redolent of civilisation, intelligence and skill. If many of her large-scale religious or historical paintings didn’t – as total compositions – really do it for me, lots and lots of details from those paintings are awe-inspiring.
Related links
- Michaelina Wautier continues at the Royal Academy until 21 June 2026
- Large print guide i.e. the wall captions
- Michaelina Wautier Wikipedia article
Women art reviews
- Women artists
- Women artists in the 20th and 21st century ed. Uta Grosenick (2003)
- 50 Women Artists You Should Know (2008)
- Women, Art and Society by Whitney Chadwick (2012)
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