Michaelina Wautier review: Intensely pleasurable look at neglected female artist

Michaelina Wautier, Self-portrait, c. 1650. Oil on canvas, 120 x 102 cm. Private collection - (Courtesy of Royal Academy)

Now here’s a thing. At a time when women painters have never been more prized and sought-after, at the Royal Academy we find an almost unknown mid-seventeenth century Flemish female artist who would be at ease in any collection featuring Rubens and Van Dyck. Michaelina Wautier, along with her brother Charles, was for centuries lost to view, despite her obvious standing as an artist during her career and her distinguished patrons. Indeed, it was only really in 2018 that she came on the radar with an ambitious exhibition of her work in Antwerp. Now the hunt is on for other works by her, but for now, most of her known (or assumed) paintings are assembled in the Royal Academy for this intensely pleasurable exhibition.

There’s a self-portrait at the outset of the show: a humorous and attractive young woman with a steady gaze, easel in hand, and an improbably lovely dress, given that she’s in the act of painting. We can assume that for work purposes she’d be in a sensible smock but for her self portrait we see not just her brilliance in depicting character, including her own, but her flair with fabric – sheeny silk and voluptuous velvet – and her fondness for pearls.