Michaelina Wautier (1604–1689)

• Was a painter from the Southern Netherlands.
• Born in 1604 in Mons, Belgium.

• Michaelina Wautier was the only daughter in a family of nine children.

• She appears to have begun her artistic career later in life, around the age of 39.
• Her brother Charles Wautier was also a painter, and the two moved to Brussels in 1645, where they both remained unmarried and shared a studio.
• Both were almost certainly well-trained in art, but it is not known where or with whom.
• Michaelina Wautier painted in small formats as well as more ambitious canvases with as main subjects history, religion and mythology.
• Her works also include a series of portraits.
• Her first self-portrait, painted in 1649, was long mistakenly associated with the Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi.
• Unlike many other women painters of this period, Wautier received recognition while alive.
• In particular, she sold four paintings to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria for his painting gallery.

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