In recent years, many female artists who had been unjustly ignored for decades, if not centuries, have begun to gain the recognition they deserve, but the route from anonymity to acclaim has been particularly spectacular when it comes to the Baroque artist Michaelina Wautier. Although still far from a household name, Wautier is considered by many to be the most exciting art historical rediscovery of the last decade. The scale and diversity of her oeuvre, which includes portraits, allegorical series and still-lifes, was unheard of for a female painter of her era. But it is her mastery of history painting, a genre considered off limits to women due to the necessity of studying from the nude, which is particularly notable. Wautier’s masterpiece, The Triumph of Bacchus makes her the first known female artist to have painted the naked male form on such a scale.

And yet, if not for the perseverance of the art historian Katlijne Van der Stighelen, this exceptional talent would still be languishing in obscurity. Van der Stighelen first came across Wautier’s work in the 1990s and was blown away, but found it impossible to gain support for an exhibition focusing on an unknown artist. It was not until the Flanders tourism department decided to invest heavily in a three year exhibition programme dedicated to Baroque art that she finally got her chance. Van der Stighelen successfully lobbied to have Wautier included and the resulting show, held at Antwerp’s Museum aan de Stroom (MAS) in the summer of 2018, exceeded all expectations. It gained international attention, with both the press and the public fascinated by this artist who was so technically accomplished yet completely unknown. By the time the show came down, some 68,000 visitors had seen it — significantly more than the 40,000 MAS usually expects for a summer show.

In the intervening years, the discovery of more works by Wautier, most notably her allegorical series The Five Senses (1650), has confirmed her status as a sublimely gifted artist. Virtually her entire known oeuvre is now on display in the exhibition Michaelina Wautier: Painter at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, a truncated version of which will be travelling to the Royal Academy next year. But while the exhibition will undoubtedly bring her the larger audience she so richly deserves, Wautier herself remains something of a mystery with much of her biography consisting of guesswork and conjecture.

Born Michelle Wautier around 1614, most likely in the Belgian city of Mons, her earliest known work, dating from around 1643, is a portrait of the Spanish Commander Andrea Cantelmo. It suggests that by her late twenties, Wautier had already achieved a degree of recognition and access to influential patrons. Although now lost, a print after the painting was made by the Antwerp engraver Paulus Pontius who accompanied it with a Latin inscription in which Michaelina, the Latin form of Michelle, is used for the first time. It would be the name with which she signed her work from then on.

It is thought that she moved to Brussels with her brother Charles, also an artist, around 1640 and it seems likely that she trained with him and shared a studio. It is the only feasible explanation for her mastery of the male form, as it would have been unthinkable for her to have participated in life drawing classes without a male chaperone in the room.

In her earliest known history painting, The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, dated 1649, Saint Catherine kneels before the Virgin and Christ Child with the wheel on which she was to be martyred, shattered when it was struck by lightning, used as a prop for her left arm. A third woman, holding a martyr’s palm, stands behind them forming a pyramidal structure that brings perfect balance to the composition. Both the breathtaking technical quality and highly original interpretation of the iconography testify to Wautier’s exceptional talent. As Van der Stighelen notes in the catalogue to the current exhibition: ‘It was unprecedented for a woman in the Low Countries to be able to create a history painting of such quality.’ Her signature, Michaelina Wautier invenit et fecit 1649 (Michaelina devised the composition and painted the scene) suggests she was well aware of her achievement and had no intention of hiding her talent under a bushel.

She seems to have revelled in experimenting with different genres, bringing a fresh take to whatever she touched. Her allegorical cycle, The Five Senses, is a case in point. Each painting in the series features a boy dressed in simple clothes set against a dark background, their faces lit from the front creating a Caravaggesque chiaroscuro. Wautier has given each child its own distinct personality and features, with Taste shyly catching the viewers eye as he munches on a slice of bread and the unfortunate Touch scratching his head and grimacing as he glances down at the finger he has cut while whittling.

It had been assumed that Wautier had drawn inspiration from Michael Sweerts, known for his charming depictions of young boys, and also active in Brussels, but as he did not begin painting such images until the mid-1650s it suggests that Wautier was actually the innovator here.

Her portraits of children, whether in allegorical or biblical scenes, are a highlight in her astonishing oeuvre.  In Saint John the Baptist as a Boy (c.1650-55) she portrays the saint, not as a baby or young man as is more common, but as a tentative yet gently assured youth, whose frail half naked chest is achingly moving. Two Girls as Saints Agnes and Dorothy (c.1655), which has become one of her most recognised works, shows that she was equally attuned to young girls. Agnes, draped in artfully arranged and exquisitely observed robes that poignantly seem to overwhelm her, turns her head absentmindedly back towards Dorothy although their eyes do not meet. Despite their youth, both girls seem to be dwelling on the fate they know their virtue will lead them to.

Wautier brought an equally assured touch to her portrayals of adults, with her portrait of the Italian Jesuit missionary and cartographer Martino Martini being particularly notable. After years in China, Martini had returned to Europe in 1653 in part to seek a publisher for his Novus Atlas Sinensis, the first ever atlas of China. Wautier painted him the following year, skilfully capturing his intense personality and revelling in the colours and textures of his fine Chinese garments. It seems highly likely that the portrait was commissioned by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, governor of the Spanish Netherlands, who resided in Brussels. Martini had dedicated his atlas to the archduke in gratitude for his financial support of Jesuits in China.

Leopold Wilhelm seems to have been one of Wautier’s most prominent patrons. He had purchased a number of works by her in 1650, and when an inventory of his collection was drawn up in 1659 it also included The Triumph of Bacchus. Although listed as an ‘Original von N.Woutiers’ it is now universally accepted to be by Wautier. As it would have been highly unlikely for her to embark on such a monumental work without a commission it is fair to assume that the archduke asked her to produce it.

Wautier appears to have been given a free hand to interpret the scene as she wished and clearly revelled in the opportunity to show off her unprecedented skill in portraying the male form. She appears to have deliberately chosen a wide variety of ages and body types in order to emphasise her talent. The drunken young Bacchus lolls on a wheel barrow, the contours and tones of his pale fleshy torso exquisitely observed, while his member, although discreetly hidden under a leopard skin, is nonetheless emphasised by a fig leaf placed so deliberately that it seems to suggest she could have gone into more detail had she wanted to. Pushing the wheelbarrow is a grizzled, suntanned satyr, beginning to suffer from the ravages of time, while behind him young boys with chubby thighs and bellies frolic gleefully with a ram.

Amongst the debauchery is a female figure who stands bare breasted yet aloof, ignoring the lascivious old man who seems to want to draw her into the parade, her gaze directly confronting the viewer. This is perhaps Wautier’s most daring and innovative touch — a self-portrait in which she appears to brazenly display her contempt for the constraints placed upon female artists. ‘See what we can do if you let us?’, she seems to say.

But of course then, and for centuries afterwards, women were rarely, if ever, allowed to produce such works, which only reinforced the view that they were incapable of doing so. In the early 20th century, the curator of Flemish painting at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gustav Glück, thought it inconceivable that a painting as accomplished and on such a grand scale as The Triumph of Bacchus could have been created by a woman, an all too common prejudice that helps explain why Wautier languished in obscurity for so long.

Even when the male nude did not feature in her works it seems that the art historical establishment was keen to erase her name. Until 1983, Wautier’s The Annunciation was thought to be by the French painter Pierre Bedeau, as her signature had been deliberately painted over. This monumental work, most likely intended as an altarpiece, was created in 1659 and is Wautier’s last known dated work. At the time she would have been in her forties and at the height of her powers. As she lived until 1689, when she would have been in her early seventies, it seems unlikely that she did not produce more. That there might be more paintings by this remarkable artist waiting to be discovered is an enticing prospect indeed.