At the National Museum in Oslo, the word "Woman" has been crossed out in the exhibition title. What remains is Painter, and that is precisely the point: from October 8, 2026 to February 7, 2027, 51 paintings by 19 artists who worked in Northern Europe and Italy between 1550 and 1650 are on view, presented as professional painters, not exceptions. For anyone considering a poster with depth, light, and a story behind it, the exhibition is a shortcut into a chapter of art history that has long been overlooked. Here’s what’s on view, why it matters, and how these painters’ subjects can find a place in a home.
Quick facts: Woman Painter is on view at the National Museum in Oslo from October 8, 2026 to February 7, 2027, and consists of 51 paintings by 19 artists, created between 1550 and 1650. The exhibition was developed in collaboration with Galleria Borghese in Rome, where it will travel from March 15 to May 30, 2027. Loans come from, among others, the Rijksmuseum, the Uffizi, and the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. A still life from the National Museum’s own collection is being shown for the first time as a work by Clara Peeters.
A crossed-out "Woman": the exhibition that wants to stop talking about exceptions
The title already says it all. By crossing out the word "Woman," the National Museum aims to show that these artists were not curiosities but fully engaged in European art life. The exhibition features, among others, Sofonisba Anguissola (around 1530–1625), Lavinia Fontana (1552–1614), Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 to around 1654), Clara Peeters (around 1585 to around 1655), Michaelina Wautier (1604–1689), and Judith Leyster (1600 or 1610–1660). These are six names with very different backgrounds, but they have one thing in common: they charged for their work, built reputations, and received commissions.
The exhibition has a special Nordic dimension. The museum is also highlighting the Norwegian 19th-century portrait painter Asta Nørregaard, and the international loans include works from the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. This means that anyone traveling to Oslo can see Swedish collections in a new context. Those who don’t travel can still take the idea home: a painting doesn’t need to be signed by a famous man to be worth putting up on the wall.
The exhibition also has a detective story built in. A still life from the museum’s own collection, Still Life with Small Game and Grapes on a Gilded Tazza from around 1620, is now being shown for the first time as a work by Clara Peeters. The reattribution is based on research by curator Cynthia Osiecki. A single brushstroke from one name to another can change how a work of art is read, and how much we understand about the person who painted it.
Clara Peeters and the knife bearing her name: the still life as signature
If any artist in the exhibition is suited to printed art for the home, it is Clara Peeters. She was in Amsterdam in 1611 and The Hague in 1617, and is considered one of the earliest painters of food still lifes. Her earliest known signed and dated painting is from 1607. She signed 31 works, and a further 76 are attributed to her with varying degrees of certainty. The Prado Museum has a series of four large still lifes, three of them dated 1611, which belonged to the Spanish royal family. Among them is what may be the oldest known still life with dead game.
The rarest device, however, is her way of hiding herself in the image. Several of her paintings bear her name engraved on the handle of a decorated wedding knife of the kind made by Antwerp silversmiths around 1595-1600. A small portrait of the painter herself is also visible in the reflective surfaces of cups and gilded bowls, mirrored in the metal. This is a tradition that goes back to Dutch masters, but Peeters made it a signature. In effect, she said: I am here, in the middle of the image, between the cheese and the currants.
"Clara Peeters signed her still lifes with a knife and her own face in a silver cup - one of art history’s quietest ways of saying I was here."
The market has understood this. Peeters’s auction record is a floral painting from 1612, Roses, Lilies, an Iris and Other Flowers in an Earthenware Vase, which sold at Christie’s in New York on June 10, 2022, for $1.2 million hammer price, or $1.5 million including fees. According to Artprice, she has had 49 public auction sales, the first in 1987 and the most recent in 2025. These figures show that a name that once almost disappeared is now valued as one of the Baroque’s most important. More about her life and work can be found on Wikipedia’s page on Clara Peeters.
The fact that the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm is a lender means the exhibition also says something about Swedish collections. Baroque women painters have always been in our museums, but often under other names or with no name at all. The reattribution of Peeters’s still life in Oslo is an example of how research can bring a work from anonymity to a clearly identified artist, and this work is underway in many parts of Europe right now.
For anyone who collects art, or simply wants to hang something that will last for many years, it’s worth noting what happens when a story changes. Images once considered the work of second-rate artists are brought to the fore, exhibited, and become sought-after again, and the renewed interest is evident both among museums and those who decorate their homes. That’s a good reason to choose subjects thoughtfully instead of following only passing trends.
Artemisia, Sofonisba, and Judith: three ways to make their mark in the 17th century
Artemisia Gentileschi painted Susanna and the Elders in 1610, at the age of 17, and it is her earliest surviving work. Her Judith Slaying Holofernes exists in several versions, the first from 1612–1613 at Capodimonte in Naples and the second, painted between 1614 and 1620, in the Uffizi in Florence. She was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence. Her subjects are dramatic, physical, and direct, and they have found new life in modern feminism, but they are also masterful lessons in the use of light.
Sofonisba Anguissola, the eldest of the group, attained a position that made her unique in her time. Her portraits of family and court depict people in everyday moments: a laugh, a group of siblings at play, a gaze that meets the viewer’s. Judith Leyster, who worked in Haarlem, is known for her cheerful social scenes, where musicians and drinking companions seem to have paused mid-sentence. You can follow the Dutch school further in our guide to Hals and Rembrandt in Haarlem, which focuses on Leyster’s contemporaries.
What they all have in common is that they worked in a world that wasn’t built for them, yet their works have survived. That makes a strong foundation for a poster: the image carries the story of how it came to be, and that story comes with it into the room.
From Peeters’s banquet table to your dining space: still life as a poster
Still life is one of the few genres that works almost anywhere in a home. That’s because its subjects are everyday things: fruit, fish, cheese, bread, flowers, glassware. In a kitchen or by a dining table, a painting of a laid table feels like a natural extension of what happens in the room. Peeters’s distinctive style, with its dark background and bright light on metal and fruit, also makes her paintings work in rooms that otherwise lack daylight.
We’ve written about how still lifes use color and light in our guide to Zurbarán’s lemons at the Louvre, and much of it applies here too. A dark background with a sharply lit subject looks best in a slim wooden frame or a black frame, perhaps with a discreet mat to highlight the picture’s lighter areas. Contemporary floral still lifes, with roses and lilies in a vase, can be found among our posters featuring flowers.
Tip: Hanging a still life in the dining area? Position it so the center is about 145 centimeters above the floor, but hang it a little lower if you usually sit down for dinner. Light from a lamp above the table makes the dark areas in the Baroque painting glow.
Practical choices: motifs, sizes, and rooms for Baroque women
If you’d like to bring a little of the exhibition home, start by thinking about which room needs a story. The kitchen and dining area are natural spots for still lifes, and you’ll find more ideas among our kitchen prints and citrus and fruit posters. Fruit in strong light against a dark background is exactly the kind of motif that Peeters, Zurbarán, and their successors made into a genre of its own.
Portraits require a little more thought. A portrait of a woman from the 16th or 17th century has a different presence from a still life, because her gaze meets the viewer’s. In a living room or hallway, it works best when hung at eye level with a wall of its own, or as part of a gallery wall where several pictures interact with one another. If you want to combine older motifs with newer ones, browse artworks by famous artists and find pictures that share a common palette, such as warm earth tones and deep green.
As for size, 50x70 centimeters is a safe choice for still lifes and portraits, while 30x40 suits a gallery wall where several motifs need to share the space. A large 70x100 can make a still life feel almost tangible: the fruit appears life-size, and the room is transformed into a banquet table. Bear in mind that Baroque dark backgrounds lose much of their impact in a room with strong backlighting. Hang the picture where daylight falls diagonally across it, so the surface does not reflect light.
Another source of inspiration is our guide to Eva Gonzalès at the Petit Palais, where another forgotten painter is rediscovered. Both exhibitions share the idea that the forgotten women of art history deserve a place on our walls, not just in the footnotes. If you'd like to follow Peeters' prices and auction history, read the full Artprice article about the exhibition.
Frequently asked questions about Woman Painter and women painters of the Baroque
The exhibition in Oslo is a reminder that art history has always had more painters than the textbooks mention. Explore artworks by famous artists, posters for the dining room and fruit prints to find an image with a real story to tell, and give it a place where you gather every day.