Rose Bertin

Marie-Jeanne Rose Bertin (July 2, 1747– September 22, 1813) was a French milliner and dressmaker to Queen Marie Antoinette. 

She was the first celebrated French fashion designer and is widely credited with having brought fashion and haute couture to the forefront of popular culture.

Bertin came from a family of small means, her mother was a sick nurse. She and her brother Jean-Laurent received a modest education but a higher level of ambition. Rose Bertin moved to Paris, where she was apprenticed to a milliner, Mademoiselle Pagelle, and eventually became her business partner. Bertin’s early success can be attributed to her good relations with the Princesse de Conti, the Duchesse de Chartres and the Princesse de Lamballe, who would one day arrange her fateful meeting with Marie Antoinette.

In 1770 Bertin opened her own dress shop, Le Grand Mogol, on the Rue Saint-Honoré and quickly found customers among influential noble ladies at Versailles, many of whom followed her from Mademoiselle Pagelle’s, including many ladies-in-waiting to the new Dauphine, Marie Antoinette.

Marie Antoinette de Lorraine-Hasbourg and Her Children by Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun (1787)

The Queen is shown in an up-to-date outfit created by Bertin.

When Marie Antoinette arrived in France from Austria, she embraced France's new styles and fashions as one of the ways in which to show her sincere appreciation of her new country. She was introduced to Bertin in 1772. Twice a week, soon after Louis XVI’s coronation, Bertin would present her newest creations to the young queen and spend hours discussing them. The Queen adored her wardrobe and was passionate about every detail, and Bertin, as her milliner, became her confidante and friend.

In the mid-18th century, French women had begun to "pouf" (raise) their hair with pads and pomade and wore oversized luxurious gowns. Bertin used and exaggerated the leading modes of the day, and created poufs for Marie Antoinette with heights up to three feet. The pouf fashion reached such extremes that it became a period trademark, along with decorating the hair with ornaments and objects which showcased current events. 

Working with Léonard, the Queen's royal hairdresser, Bertin created a coiffure that became the rage all over Europe: hair would be accessorized, stylized, cut into defining scenes, and modeled into shapes and objects—ranging from recent gossip to nativities to husbands' infidelities, to French naval vessels such as the Belle Poule, to the pouf aux insurgents in honor of the American Revolutionary War. 

The Queen's most famous coif was the "inoculation" pouf that she wore to publicize her success in persuading the King to be vaccinated against smallpox.

Marie Antoinette also asked Bertin to dress up dolls in the latest fashions as gifts for her sisters and her mother, the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. These dolls were called "Pandoras," and were made of wax, wood or porcelain. There were small ones the size of a common toy doll, or large ones as big or half as big as a real person. They were in vogue until the appearance of fashion magazines.

Called "Minister of Fashion" by her detractors, Bertin was the brains behind almost every new dress commissioned by the Queen. Dresses and hair became Marie Antoinette's personal vehicles of expression, and Bertin clothed the Queen from 1770 until her dethronement in 1792. Bertin became a powerful figure at court, and she witnessed—and sometimes effected—profound changes in French society. 

Her large, ostentatious gowns ensured that their wearer occupied at least three times as much space as her male counterpart, thus making the female figure an imposing, not passive, presence. Her creations also established France as the center of the fashion industry, and from then on, dresses made in Paris were sent to London, Venice, Vienna, Saint Petersburg and Constantinople. This inimitable Parisian elegance established the worldwide reputation of French couture.

Under the Queen's generous patronage, Bertin's name became synonymous with the sartorial elegance and excess of Versailles. Bertin's close relationship with the Queen provided valuable background into the social and political significance of fashion at the French court. The frequent meetings between the queen and her couturière were met, however, with hostility from the lower classes, given Bertin's high prices: her gowns and headdresses could easily cost twenty times what a skilled worker of the time earned in a year.

During Marie Antoinette’s imprisonment, Bertin continued to receive orders from her former prized customer, for much smaller, almost negligible, orders of ribbons and simple alterations. She was to provide the former queen’s mourning outfit following the execution of Louis XVI, recalling a dream that Marie Antoinette had had years before of her favorite milliner handing her ribbons that all turned to black.

During the French Revolution, when many of her noble customers were being executed or were fleeing abroad, Bertin moved her business to London. For a while, she was able to serve her old clients among the émigrés, and her fashion dolls continued to circulate among European capitals, as far away as Saint Petersburg. She eventually returned to France in 1795, where Joséphine de Beauharnais briefly became a customer, but Bertin found that the fashion excesses of the era had waned after the French Revolution ended.

As the 19th century dawned, Bertin transferred her business to her nephews and retired. She died in 1813 in Épinay-sur-Seine.

Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi (July 8, 1593 – c. 1656) was an Italian Baroque painter, today considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation following that of Caravaggio. 

In an era when women painters were not easily accepted by the artistic community or patrons, she was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence.

She painted many pictures of strong and suffering women from myth and the Bible; victims, suicides, warriors, and made it her specialty to paint the Judith story. Her best-known work is Judith Slaying Holofermes, which "shows the decapitation of Holofernes, a scene of horrific struggle and blood-letting"

That she was a woman painting in the seventeenth century and that she was raped and participated in prosecuting the rapist, long overshadowed her achievements as an artist. For many years she was regarded as a curiosity. Today she is regarded as one of the most progressive and expressionist painters of her generation.

The first work of the young seventeen-year-old Artemisia was the Susanna e i Vecchioni (Susanna and the Elders) At the time some, influenced by the prevailing misconceptions, suspected that she was helped by her father. The painting shows how Artemisia assimilated the realism of Caravaggio without being indifferent to the language of the Bologna school, which had Annibale Carracci among its major artists. 

It is one of the few paintings on the theme of Susanna showing the sexual accosting by the two Elders as a traumatic event. (Unusually as normally Susanna was shown as enjoying the attentions of the men)

Her success and gender fueled many rumors about her private life. For example, some speculate that the case of her rape released her from societal pressures, having created an understanding of why some of her works were filled with defiant and violent women, rather than examining the style of those influencing hers.

Notable works from this period include La Conversione della Maddalena (The Conversion of the Magdalene), Self-Portrait as a Lute Player and Giuditta con la sua ancella (Judith and her Maidservant). Artemisia also painted a second version of Giuditta che decapita Oloferne (Judith beheading Holofernes)

Artemisia returned to Rome in 1621 however despite her artistic reputation, her strong personality, and her numerous good relationships, Rome was not so lucrative as she hoped. 

Her style, tone of defiance, and strength relaxed. She painted less intense works. For instance, her second version ofSusanna and the Elders (1622) 

The appreciation of her art was narrowed down to portraits and to her ability with biblical heroines. She did not receive any of the lucrative commissions for altarpieces. 

The absence of sufficient documentation makes it difficult to follow Artemisia's movements in this period. It is certain that between 1627 and as late as 1630, she moved to Venice, perhaps in search of richer commissions. Evidence for this is that verses and letters were composed in appreciation of her and her works in Venice.

Although it is sometimes difficult to date her paintings, it is possible to assign certain works by her to these years, the Ritratto di gonfaloniere (Portrait of Gonfaloniere), today in Bologna (a rare example of her capacity as portrait painter) and the Giuditta con la sua ancella, (Judith and her Maidservant) today housed at the Detroit Institute of Arts. 

The Detroit painting is notable for her mastery of chiaroscuro and tenebrism (the effects of extreme lights and darks), techniques for which Gerrit van Honthorst, Trophime Bigot, and many others in Rome were famous. 

Her Venere Dormiente (The Sleeping Venus), today at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, and her Ester ed Assuero (Esther and Ahasuerus) located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, are testimony to her assimilation of the lessons of Venetian luminism.

In 1630 Artemisia moved to Naples where for the first time she started working on paintings in a cathedral, dedicated to San Gennaro nell'anfiteatro di Pozzuoli (Saint Januarius in the amphitheater of Pozzuoli) in Pozzuoli. 

During her first Neapolitan period she painted Nascita di San Giovanni Battista (Birth of Saint John the Baptist) located in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, and Corisca e il satiro (Corisca and the satyr), in a private collection. 

In these paintings Artemisia again demonstrates her ability to adapt to the novelties of the period and handle different subjects, instead of the usual Judith, Susanna, Bathsheba, and Penitent Magdalenes, for which she already was known.

In 1638 Artemisia joined her father in London at the court of Charles I of England, where Orazio became court painter and received the important job of decorating a ceiling (allegory of Trionfo della pace e delle Arti (Triumph of the peace and the Arts) in the Casa delle Delizie of Queen Henrietta Maria of France in Greenwich)

As Artemisia grew older, her work became more graceful and "feminine," and while this was to some extent part of the general shift in taste and sensibility, it must also have resulted from the artist becoming more and more self-consciously a woman painter.

Artemisia was once thought to have died in 1652/1653, however, recent evidence has shown that she was still accepting commissions in 1654, although increasingly dependent upon her assistant, Onofrio Palumbo. It might be speculated that she died in the devastating plague that swept Naples in 1656 and virtually wiped out an entire generation of Neapolitan artists.

Joanna Koerten

Joanna Koerten (17 November 1650 - 28 December 1715) was as a Dutch artist who excelled in painting, drawing, embroidery, glass etching, and wax modeling.

She achieved fame as a silhouette cutter, the art of creating outline images from pieces of cut paper mounted on a contrasting background. She produced landscapes, seascapes, flowers, portraits, and religious scenes in this medium. Her clients included Peter the Great of Russia, Frederick Elector of Brandenburg, Johan de Witt and William III of England.

From a young age she sat apart from other children and showed an interest in depicting what she saw around her, things both animate and inanimate.

She gained fame as an artist working out of her husband's shop at No. 137 Nieuwendijk Amsterdam, which served as a gallery of her work. Peter the Great honored her with a visit in 1697 in the company of Mayor Witsen. According to Houbraken, she could carve scenes on glass with a diamond, embroider and weave silk creations, pouring wax creations, lace-making and watercolor painting.

According to the RKD, she was known as a knipkunstenaar or papercut artist and draughts(wo)man.

Joanna Koerten died on 28 December 1715 aged 65, and is buried in the Oudezijds Chapel, Amsterdam.

After her death her gallery continued as a place of interest to artists and a visitors book kept by her surviving husband shows the names of many notable artist and poet visitors, both during her lifetime and beyond. Among them are artists Gerard de Lairesse, Melchior Hondecoeter and Nicholas Verkolje; calligraphers Jacob Gadelle, and Mary Strick; and poets David van Hoogstraten, John Brandt, Gesine Brit and Katharina Lescailje.

Sofonisba Anguissola

Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532 – 16 November 1625) was an Italian Renaissance painter born in Cremona. 

She received a well-rounded education that included the fine arts, and her apprenticeship with local painters set a precedent for women to be accepted as students of art. As a young woman, Anguissola traveled to Rome where she was introduced to Michelangelo, who immediately recognized her talent, and to Milan, where she painted the Duke of Alba. She later became an official court painter to the king, and adapted her style to the more formal requirements of official portraits for the Spanish court. 

Self-portraits and family members were her most frequent subjects, but, in her later life, she also painted religious themes. In 1625, she died at age ninety-three in Palermo. Anguissola's oeuvre had a lasting influence on subsequent generations of artists, and her great success opened the way for larger numbers of women to pursue serious careers as artists. .

Art historian Giorgio Vasari wrote about Anguissola that she "has shown greater application and better grace than any other woman of our age in her endeavors at drawing; she has thus succeeded not only in drawing, coloring and painting from nature, and copying excellently from others, but by herself has created rare and very beautiful paintings."

Although Anguissola enjoyed significantly more encouragement and support than the average woman of her day, her social class did not allow her to transcend the constraints of her sex. Without the possibility of studying anatomy or drawing from life (it was considered unacceptable for a lady to view nudes), she could not undertake the complex multi-figure compositions required for large-scale religious or history paintings.

Instead, she experimented with new styles of portraiture, setting subjects informally. Self-portraits and family members were her most frequent subjects, as seen in such paintings as Self-Portrait (1554, Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna), The Chess Game (1555, Muzeum Narodowe, Poznań), which depicted her sisters Lucia, Minerva and Europa, and Portrait of Amilcare, Minerva and Asdrubale Anguissola (c. 1557-1558, Nivaagaards Malerisambling, Niva, Denmark).

Properzia de' Rossi

Properzia de' Rossi (c. 1490–1530) was an Italian female Renaissance sculptor. 

This daughter of a notary studied under the Bolognese artist and master engraver Marcantonio Raimondi, who is best known today for his engravings of the paintings by Raphael.

Early in her career, Properzia was celebrated for her complex but small-scale sculptures fashioned from stone-fruit pits, such as from apricots, peaches and cherries. The subject of these small "friezes" was often religious, with one of the most famous being a Crucifixion in a peach pit.

As she approached her thirties, de' Rossi began working in large scale. Her marble portrait busts from this period gained her prominence and public commissions, including the decorative program for the high altar of Santa Maria del Baraccano in Bologna. She also won a competition to create sculpture for the west facade of San Petronio in Bologna. Records show that she was paid to create three sibyls, two angels, and a pair of bas-relief panels, including a panel depicting Joseph and Potiphar's Wife. In the scene, Joseph attempts to escape from the wife of an Egyptian officer. De' Rossi uses fluid drapery to illustrate the tension in this dynamic scene.

While de' Rossi won important commissions in her life, she died before reaching forty, bankrupt and without close relatives or friends.

De' Rossi was one of about 40 woman artists, mostly painters, in Renaissance Italy. Female sculptors were rare. She was one of four women included in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists, collecting biographies of those he viewed as the most prominent artists of the recent centuries.