https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/this-17th-century-female-artist-was-once-bigger-star-than-rembrandt-why-did-history-forget-about-johanna-koerten-and-her-peers-180987410/
An article on an exhibition in the US of over 40 women artists from the Dutch Golden Age, a term which is now apparently out of favour for fuck knows why.
Some great cultural historical insights:
'For those who weren’t raised in a bustling family workshop, wealth was a deciding factor in whether a woman had access to creative opportunities. Middle- and upper-class families could afford to send their daughters to train with established artists, as Rusych did with still life painter Willem van Aelst. (Leyster, whose family wasn’t particularly wealthy, nevertheless managed to obtain an apprenticeship with a master painter, likely the Dutch artist Frans Hals.) Women born into poorer families, however, had few options when it came to artistic pursuits. They had to work to survive, and this work often involved lace-making.
“Think about all those great 17th-century portraits—Rembrandt, Frans Hals—everyone’s wearing lace,” says Treanor. “Who made all that lace? … It was women, and it was usually women of the lower classes.”
Works on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art present two distinct visions of women’s labor. Nicolaes Maes’ The Lacemaker (circa 1656) shows a young mother leaning over an incomplete piece of lace as the baby beside her placidly peers out at the viewer. It’s “a quiet and intimate moment,” according to Treanor, aptly fitting into the popular 17th-century genre of solitary women at work in serene domestic spaces.'
...
'“Women Artists From Antwerp to Amsterdam” also explores the dark side of the era’s thriving economy, which relied heavily on slavery. Botanical artist Maria Sibylla Merian created watercolors of the flora and fauna of Suriname, which was then a Dutch colony in South America. Much of the information she relayed back home came from enslaved people. “She readily credits them for imparting knowledge to her, for helping her procure specimens, but also for imparting knowledge about the uses of particular plants,” says Treanor. One such plant, the peacock flower, was used by some enslaved women to abort their pregnancies, as they didn’t want their children to be born into slavery. “It’s this really kind of chilling window into this moment in history,” Treanor adds. “It’s this imparting of knowledge from women to women.”'
Some gorgeous paintings, and lace pieces in the article.
Here's another article on Joanna Koerten's amazing papercut art:
https://daily.jstor.org/joanna-koertens-scissor-cut-works-were-compared-to-michelangelo/