{"id":94373,"date":"2025-12-30T15:36:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T20:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nmwa.org\/?p=94373"},"modified":"2025-12-30T15:49:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T20:49:56","slug":"women-artists-from-antwerp-to-amsterdam-networks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmwa.org\/blog\/nmwa-exhibitions\/women-artists-from-antwerp-to-amsterdam-networks\/","title":{"rendered":"Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam: Networks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Women played a vital role in shaping the visual culture of the Low Countries, present-day Belgium and the Netherlands, during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600<\/em>–1750<\/em><\/a> is the first-ever survey exhibition of women artists from this region and time period. Including more than 40 artists, with many works on view in the United States for the first time, it demonstrates that women were an active and consequential part of one of the most robust and dynamic artistic economies of the era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Powering the Art Market<\/strong> <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Women were crucial to the artistic economy of the Low Countries, and their labor was a significant factor in the unprecedented expansion of trade and the thriving market for art and luxury goods in this era. In an essay for the exhibition\u2019s catalogue, research assistant Katie Altizer Takata writes, \u201cWomen were involved in nearly every aspect of these luxury markets, making some of the most expensive and sought-after objects of the time, including paintings (Rachel Ruysch), paper cuttings (Johanna Koerten), botanical volumes (Maria Sibylla Merian), and lace, as well as more common items such as prints, books, and ceramics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Still
Clara Peeters, Still Life of Fish and Cat<\/em>, after 1620; Oil on panel, 13 1\/2 x 18 1\/2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Local Networks, Global Reach<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Women painters and printmakers catered to the art market just as their male counterparts did, innovating and adapting along the way. Painting for the first open art market in Antwerp, where buyers could procure finished paintings (instead of having them commissioned), Clara Peeters<\/a> (ca. 1587-after 1636) relied on skill and technique to reproduce her popular imagery quickly. She strategically repeated motifs across works, such as the carp in the center of Still Life of Fish and Cat<\/em> (after 1620). Collectors would have appreciated the verisimilitude with which Peeters depicted varied textures in her still lifes, a genre in which she was a pioneer.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the visitors Johanna Koerten<\/a> (1650-1715) welcomed to view examples of her work was Tsar Peter the Great of Russia, an indication of her international reputation. Koerten created his portrait, as she did with many other illustrious people of the time, including King William III of England. In her portrait of the Russian Tsar, Koerten skillfully uses shading cuts to render different materials, such as his soft ermine stole and rigid armor.<\/p>\n\n\n\t

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