The Ladies of the Baroque | Part 2

Ginevra Cantofoli

Italian painter, 1618-1672

Ginevra Cantofoli trained under Giovanni Andrea Sirani, the father of Elisabetta Sirani, in Bologna.

Although a generation older than Elisabetta Sirani, Cantofoli was described by Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Cesare Masini and Marcello Oretti as Elisabetta's student.

Ginevra Cantofoli | Woman in a Turban, 1650 | Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini, Roma.

A painting of a Woman in a Turban in the collection of the Palazzo Barberini, traditionally identified as a portrait of Beatrice Cenci, long attributed to Guido Reni, has been attributed to Ginevra Cantofoli.

Ginevra Cantofoli | A Sea-Nymph, probably Galatea

A record price for a work by Cantofoli was set by "A Sea-Nymph, probably Galatea", auctioned for $137,500 at Sotheby's, New York, January 30, 2020.

Orsola Maddalena Caccia

Italian painter, 1596-1676

Orsola Maddalena Caccia, born Theodora Caccia was an Italian Mannerist painter and Catholic nun.

She is known for being one of the few female artists to have established herself in the Italian pictorial scenario of the 1600s.

Orsola Caccia painted religious images, altarpieces and still lifes.

Michaelina Wautier

Flemish painter, 1604-1689

Michaelina Wautier was a painter from the Southern Netherlands.

Only since the turn of the 21st century has her work been recognized as that of an outstanding female Baroque artist, her works having been previously attributed to male artists, especially her brother Charles.

Wautier was noted for the variety of subjects and genres that she worked in.

This was unusual for female artists of the time who were more often restricted to smaller paintings, generally portraits or still-lifes.

Giovanna Garzoni

Italian painter, 1600-1670

Giovanna Garzoni began her career painting religious, mythological, and allegorical subjects but gained fame for her botanical subjects painted in tempera and watercolour.

Her works were praised for their precision and balance and for the exactitude of the objects depicted.

More recently, her paintings have been seen to have female bodily associations and proto-feminist sentiments.

She combined objects very inventively, including Asian porcelain, exotic seashells, and botanical specimens.

She was often called the Chaste Giovanna due to her vow to remain a virgin.

Scholars have speculated Garzoni may have been influenced by fellow botanical painter Jacopo Ligozzi although details about Garzoni's training are unknown.

Judith Leyster

Dutch Golden Age painter, 1609-1660

Judith Jans Leyster was a painter of genre works, portraits, and still lifes.

Her work was highly regarded by her contemporaries, but largely forgotten after her death.

Her entire oeuvre came to be attributed to Frans Hals or to her husband, Jan Miense Molenaer.

In 1893, she was rediscovered and scholars began to attribute her works properly.

Maria Sibylla Merian

German illustrator, 1647-1717

Maria Sibylla Merian was was a German naturalist and scientific illustrator.

She was one of the earliest European naturalists to observe insects directly.

She discovered many new facts about insect life through her studies.

Until her careful, detailed work, it had been thought that insects were "born of mud" by spontaneous generation.

Josefa de Óbidos

Spanish-born Portuguese painter, 1630-1684

Approximately 150 works of art have been attributed to Josefa de Óbidos, making her one of the most prolific Baroque artists in Portugal.

In the course of her career, Josefa de Óbidos received many important public commissions for altarpieces and other paintings to be displayed in churches and monasteries throughout central Portugal.

Many of her still-life paintings, considered her specialty, are now preserved in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon.

Among her most famous still lifes are a series of paintings of the months of the year, painted in collaboration with her father and now dispersed among various private collections; each of these paintings consists of a landscape background with a still life in the foreground, composed of the animals, fruits, and vegetables consumed in that month.

While these paintings appear to be secular still-life paintings on the surface, they also have religious meaning and may be connected to Franciscan religiosity.

Maria van Oosterwijk

Dutch Golden Age painter, 1630-1693

Maria van Oosterwijck, also spelled Oosterwyck was a Dutch Golden Age painter, specializing in richly detailed flower paintings and other still lifes.

Oosterwijck created floral paintings and still lifes with allegorical themes during a period in which such works were much sought after in Central Europe.

The Ladies of the Baroque | Part 1

Artemisia Gentileschi | Judith and her maid with the head of Holofernes, 1613 | Gallerie degli Uffizi, Firenze.

Artemisia Gentileschi

Italian painter, 1593-1652

Louise Moillon

French painter, 1610-1696

Mary Beale

British painter, 1633-1699

Maria Theresa van Thielen

Flemish painter, 1640-1706

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Katharina Pepijn

Flemish painter, 1619-1688

Catharina Peeters

Flemish painter 1615-1676

Johanna Vergouwen

Flemish painter, 1630-1714