Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600–1750

This richly illustrated catalog Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600–1750 celebrates the creativity, resilience, and influence of women artists working in the Dutch and Flemish regions during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Featuring more than forty painters, sculptors, printmakers, and decorative artists, the volume reveals how women shaped the artistic landscape of the early modern Low Countries despite social, economic, and institutional barriers. Essays by leading scholars explore how these artists navigated family expectations, workshop structures, and professional networks, while also examining the strategies they used to achieve recognition in a male-dominated world.

The exhibition is presented in four thematic sections: Presence, Choices, Networks, and Legacy. These themes are also reflected in the catalog, which expands upon them with in-depth essays and lavish illustrations, offering readers a deeper understanding of how women negotiated identity, opportunity, and recognition in the early modern art world.

Highlighting figures such as Judith Leyster, Clara Peeters, Anna Maria van Schurman, Michaelina Wautier, Johanna Koerten, and Rachel Ruysch, the catalog reframes their stories not as exceptions but as central to the cultural life of the Dutch and Flemish Golden Age. Both an authoritative reference and a visually stunning survey, Unforgettable restores women’s artistry to its rightful place in the history of European art.