Self-portrait with Easel

Michaelina Wautier painted this Self-Portrait with Easel around 1640, one of the rare self-portraits by a woman artist from 17th-century Antwerp that survive and one of the most ambitious statements of female artistic identity from the period. Wautier depicts herself at work, brush in hand, asserting her professional identity as a painter at a time when women artists faced significant institutional barriers — excluded from guilds, denied formal training, and often relegated to still life and genre subjects considered appropriate for their gender. Her confident pose and direct gaze claim the same status as self-portraits by her male contemporaries. Recent scholarship has substantially expanded her attributed corpus and confirmed her importance as one of the most technically accomplished Flemish painters of her generation.

The portrait shows Wautier at her easel with confident directness, using a warm palette and natural lighting that reflects the Flemish painting tradition. The composition emphasizes her professional identity through the inclusion of painting tools and canvas.