Les Dames du Baroque

"What was the role of women artists in Late Renaissance and Baroque Italy? How did they come into their own artistically in a male-dominated world? Such is the premise of the fall exhibition of the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent (MSK). Featuring some fifty paintings, the exhibition sheds light on the critical role of women painters in Italy from 1550 to 1680. Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1652), arguably the most famous female artist of 17th-century Italian art, figures prominently in the exhibition, which compares her work with that of her female contemporaries. The inclusion of decorative art objects from the period serve to contextualize the works of these women. During the 16th and 17th centuries, women artists in Venice, Rome, Naples, and Bologna undeniably shared a common ground that earned them their own place in the Baroque aesthetics. These women chose to dedicate themselves to painting and, consequently, to compete with accomplished male artists and their studios...'The ladies of the baroque' shows how these painters tackled the restrictions of their time in inventive ways. To that end, the MSK has brought together an exceptional selection of works from both prestigious museum such as the Galleria degli Uffizi (Firenze), the Gemäldegalerie (Berlin) and the Galleria Borghese (Rome), as well as finds from important private collections. Many of these works have been on public display only occasionally or are presented now for the first time"-- Museum voor Schone Kunsten Gent.