Michaelina Wautier A (still) unfinished Story

Every beginning is … uncertain

The little that we know today about Michaelina Wautier is limited to bits from her biography. We are not even able to say the exact year of her birth. According to the most recent research, she was probably born around 1614 in Mons (Waloon province of Hainaut in present-day Belgium), one of 12 children. Although Michaelina’s family did not belong to the nobility, she grew up in an educated family environment. In addition, her family had connections with the De Merodes one of the most important noble families of the south Netherlands, where the area around Mons was located and which probably played a decisive role in the Wautier children’s development. 

On the way to Brussels

Michaelina’s mother died in 1638, her father had already passed away in 1617. It is not known if Michaelina was already living in Brussels at the time of her mother’s death. She was probably about 25 years old, but her name is not found in any registry of residents or guild books in Brussels. This fact makes it difficult to impossible to trace her movements. It is thought likely that Michaelina and her older brother Charles, who worked as a painter, found their way to Brussels and hence to the art-loving aristocrats of their time as painter siblings with the help of the De Merode family. Whether Charles, who as a man had the opportunity to complete regular training as a painter, subsequently became his sister’s teacher, cannot be established with certainty. It is also possible that Michaelina received basic training as a painter while she was living in Mons.

Dynamic Duo: Michaelina and Charles Wautiers

The siblings’ move to Brussels – whenever that occured exactly – was an important event in Michaelina Wautier’s life. It is not known if Charles made a study trip to Italy with Michaelina possibly accompanying him.
In 1642 Charles rented a spacious house. When Michaelina joined him there cannot be determined though it is thought that she moved there in the 1640s. The question remains whether they worked together or each pursued his and her own ‘business’. However, their relationship must have been a particularly close one since Michaelina, in her will composed in 1662, bequeathed all her possessions to Charles. They lived together until Michaelina’s death in 1689. Particularly noteworthy is that there are no comtemporary accounts about her or her work as an artist. In contrast, Charles Wautier was esteemed in Brussels as an important artist of his day. He died in 1703 at the age of 94 also in Brussels.

Female painters not wanted!

Michaelina Wautier was born at the beginning of the Baroque era. Society was structured along strict hierarchical lines at the time. The nobility led, the people obeyed. Everyone was subject to strict rules and social norms. Women, however, were affected to a greater extent by many restrictions, because they were thought to be ‘second-class beings’. Their opportunities to go to school, to receive training, to become self-employed and run a business were extremely limited. The painter’s profession was also dominated by males. Thus while there were indeed always women who painted as a (aristocratic) hobby, professional female painters were very often either forgotten – like Michaelina – or were considered ‘wondrous exceptions’.

Male competition – female strength

Very often it was simply said that women did not possess any artistic ability. And when they were thought to be capable of painting, it was only in certain genres of painting. Female artists were suited at best for portraits and still lifes, and then only in small formats – that was the general consensus. Accordingly, Michaelina Wautier’s earliest confirmed work is a portrait dated 1643. She painted the Spanish commander Andrea Cantelmo¹, who in 1642 passed through Mons with his army. Although the original painting no longer exists, we can form an impression – if only monochromatically – from an etching made by Paulus Pontius.

But her pictures soon became bigger, their themes more diverse. She addresses a religious subject in large format in 1649’s The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine⁶, which she signed ‘Michaelina Wautier invenit et fecit 1649’ (‘Michaelina Wautier conceived and made it 1649’). With it, she demonstrated her confidence as a painter – a history painting of such quality by a woman was at that time unknown in the Netherlands. Michaelina was an artist, who could create complex compositions in large formats from her own imagination. No one believed women were capable of such a thing.