With this cabinet exhibition, the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister turns its attention to women artists from the 16th to the 18th century, who for a long time have been overshadowed by the Great Masters of art history. With their works represented in the collection, they are a minority and to this day their names are far less familiar than those of their male counterparts. This is not due to inability, but to a structural discrimination that is perpetuated in art historiography.
Women generally were not allowed formal academic training nor drawing from live (nude) models. Only a few women were lucky enough to grow up and be promoted in an artistic environment, so that institutional and social structures did not necessarily hinder their advancement. In many cases, they were the daughters of artists trained in their father’s workshop.
The cosmopolite Angelika Kauffmann (1741 – 1807) achieved widespread recognition in her lifetime and is also represented here with five works. In a time when only men were seen as true artists and women were credited, at most, with talent but never genius, the painter managed to assert herself by also being a shrewd strategist and self-promotor. She produced numerous history paintings with references to antiquity in which women take the leading roles.
Lavinia Fontana (1552 – 1614) was one of the first women of the modern period to work as an independent artist. She painted numerous portraits and history paintings of mythological and biblical themes, some of them in large format. The devotional painting in Dresden, “The Holy Family”, is an early work by the Bolognese artist which, after undergoing restoration, will be included in the show in mid-August.
This concentrated presentation also features copperplate engravings by Diana Scultori from the holdings of the Kupferstich- Kabinett as well as paintings and prints by other noteworthy women artists such as Elisabetta Sirani, Barbara Longhi, Rachel Ruysch, Maria van Oosterwijck, and Theresa Concordia Mengs.
in Zwinger
