Unforgettable: Ghent rediscovers forgotten Flemish artists – World – Arte.it

World – Magdalena van de Passe excelled in engraving, printing on satin and linen and patented a new method for printing on nightcaps. In Antwerp, Martina and Catharina Plantin, as well as Anna-Philippina and Isabella Regina Reyns, led the flourishing family businesses dedicated to the production of lace and embroidery, complete with sample books and order books. These are just some of the women who played a fundamental role in the artistic life of the Netherlands between 1600 and 1750, known at the time but overshadowed over time by the male panorama dominated by the names of Rembrandt van Rijn, Paul Rubens, Antoon van Dyck.
Giving back a voice to 40 female artists whose influence on visual culture is still felt today, is an exhibition organized by Museum of Fine Arts from Ghent from March 7 to May 31. A path that questions the consolidated idea of ​​a golden age dominated exclusively by male figures, and instead restores the image of a constellation of female presences capable of influencing the artistic, social and symbolic economy of their time.

The exhibition Unforgettablecurated by Frederica Van Dam, the first major retrospective entirely dedicated to the role and significance of women in seventeenth-century art, especially for the region of Belgium and the Netherlands, welcomes the contributions of more than 40 women artists active between 1600 and 1750 in the most diverse artistic disciplines, from paintings to prints, from sculptures to fabrics and paper cuttings. The exhibition features names such as Judith Leyster, Alida Withoos, Clara Peeters, Johanna Koerten-Block, Rachel Ruysch, Geertruydt Roghman, Anna Maria van Schurman, Maria Faydherbe, Margareta de Heer, Johanna Vergouwen, Josina Margareta Weenix and Maria Sybilla Merian. There is no shortage of those who, remaining anonymous, excelled in lace art, glass engraving, lace and embroidery.
Visitors are therefore led along a fascinating thematic journey that explores the work and lifestyle of these virtuous protagonists, delving into their families, but also the social expectations that influenced their educational and career choices. But above all Unforgettable tries to answer one last crucial question: why are these artists relatively unknown today, when they achieved so much success in their time?

Maria Van Oosterwijck, Vanitas Still Life, 1668, Olio su tela, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum

Divided into four sections, further divided into themes, the exhibition invites the public to delve into the micro and macro worlds of these women. Through their self-portraits and portraits of contemporaries, the audience comes face to face with these protagonists, immersing themselves in their personal context, among networks of intellectual, artistic and commercial friendships in a context of increasing globalization.
Even if it is the section “Value and Legacy” to form the focal point of the project. Here, visitors are invited to reflect on the striking contrast between the fame these artists enjoyed in their time and their relative obscurity today. Portraits such as those of Maria van Oosterwijk, Rachel Ruysch and Margareta Maria de Roodere, made by contemporaries, illustrate the success that these women achieved with their art and underline the high regard they enjoyed in society at the time.

The exhibition, which arrives in Ghent after a stopover National Museum for Women in the Arts (NMWA) of Washington DC, is just one of the chapters with which the MSK focused on research into women artists after the exhibition The ladies of the baroque held in 2018 and the thematic tour “Women in Art” launched in 2024.