A New Golden Age, Through the Eyes of Women Artists at NMWA

Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam at the National Museum of Women in the Arts rewrites art history, one lace collar at a time.

Forget Rembrandt for a moment. This fall, DC becomes the center of a long-overdue art historical correction, thanks to the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ newest, and most ambitious, exhibition to date.

Now on view, Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600–1750 invites visitors to reimagine the so-called “Dutch Golden Age,” not through the familiar faces of old masters, but through the vibrant, complex lives and legacies of women artists who helped shape it (and were all too often erased from the story).

With nearly 150 works by 40 Dutch and Flemish artists, the exhibition is the first of its kind to center women in this critical period of European art and global trade. These were women who not only painted, sculpted, embroidered, and etched; they ran workshops, sold to royal patrons, published scientific illustrations, and stitched intricate lace that cost more than paintings.

Some, like Judith Leyster and Rachel Ruysch, had successful, decades-long careers; others had their work hidden behind the signatures of male relatives or colleagues, only now being rediscovered.

Organized in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium (where the exhibition travels next spring), Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam is a visual and intellectual feast that fills both floors of the newly renovated NMWA galleries. The works on view come from over 50 public and private collections worldwide, including the Rijksmuseum, the Prado, and the Met. And many have never been seen in the US before!

The show is structured around four thematic sections: Presence, Choices, Economy, and Legacy and Value.

These themes help tease out both the visible and invisible labor of women in this era, whether as painters or as lace-makers, textile workers, and engravers whose contributions were central to the cultural and economic life of the Dutch Republic and Flanders.

While visually stunning, Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam doesn’t shy away from the darker threads of its golden fabric. The exhibition calls into question the “Golden Age” label itself, contextualizing the prosperity of the Low Countries within the brutal realities of colonial expansion and the transatlantic slave trade.

As curator Virginia Treanor notes, “The way we talk about historical periods and women artists matters—it shapes our understanding of both past and present.”

The exhibition encourages visitors to reckon with how gender, wealth, and empire were entangled. These women worked in a world shaped by trade routes, courtly tastes, and deeply stratified societies — and they succeeded, often brilliantly, in spite of it.

Here are our highlights:

• Judith Leyster’s self-portrait, on loan from the National Gallery of Art, is a masterclass in confidence and skill.
• Maria van Oosterwijck’s floral still lifes showcase both technical prowess and symbolic sophistication.
• Lace and embroidery samplers prove that artistic brilliance often comes with a needle, not just a brush.
• Paintings of domestic interiors, like Quiringh van Brekelenkam’s Interior with a Woman Teaching Three Girls Lace-Making Skills (1654), highlight the skill-sharing and education taking place in everyday spaces.
• A section on “misattributed” works shows just how often women artists were edited out of the narrative, and how curators today are working to correct that.

Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600 – 1750 is on view through January 11, 2026.