In 1993, an art historian walked into a museum storeroom in Vienna and came across a large painting that had slipped almost entirely from view. The picture was not recognised as an important work by a woman artist. Instead, it became the first clue in a search that would stretch across more than three decades. The artist was Michaelina Wautier, a 17th-century painter whose work had once attracted wealthy and influential patrons but was later misattributed, sometimes to male contemporaries and even to her own brother. Art historian Katlijne Van der Stighelen began tracing the scattered evidence, eventually uncovering clues to a missing series of paintings known as The Five Senses. In 2020, the five works resurfaced after years of uncertainty. By 2026, 33 years after that first encounter in storage, Wautier's work had reached London's Royal Academy, where the forgotten artist became the subject of a major exhibition. The exhibition offered a rare chance to see the breadth of her talent, from monumental religious scenes to intimate portraits and striking studies of everyday life, helping restore her place in the history of European Baroque art.
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