In recent years museums and galleries have begun the long-overdue task of questioning the stories they tell and, crucially, who has been left out of them. But what is the best way to approach this, that will ensure deep, meaningful, change? What tools are needed to create a long-lasting impact?
In 2021, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum launched Women of the Rijksmuseum: an initiative dedicated to researching and bringing visibility to the women held in the museum’s collection. Looking beyond the familiar narratives, the project seeks to reveal the many lives, contributions and stories that have long been overlooked.
Among the Rembrandts and Vermeers on its walls now hang works by women artists including Judith Leyster, Rachel Ruysch and Gesina ter Borch. Painters who, for centuries, were largely left out of the story of Dutch art history, yet whose stories reveal extraordinary talent, ambition and resilience.
But their work goes beyond simply ‘rushing to display’ more works by women artists. Their researchers spend years investigating the lives of both the makers and those working ‘behind the scenes’, from unnamed sitters to donors and collectors whose names were hidden by those of their husbands. Delving deep into the museum’s own archives, the Rijksmuseum is saying, let’s see how we can confront our history, and put in the work to make this whole museum look different.
To find out more, I spoke with Laurien van der Werff and Marion Anker from Women of the Rijksmuseum about rediscovering women in the archives, the challenges and surprises of their work, and the most fascinating stories they’ve uncovered.
Let’s dive in!
Hello Laurien and Marion, thank you both so much for speaking with me. When and how was the Women of the Rijksmuseum initiative established?
A media inquiry in late 2019 gave the final push that led to the Women of the Rijksmuseum project. Wieteke van Zeil, a journalist, asked the Rijksmuseum how many women makers we had in the collection and whether there was a policy regarding women makers – a question we could not immediately answer. It was clear that the much-needed catch-up could no longer wait.
After a slight delay due to covid, Women of the Rijksmuseum was officially launched on 8 March 2021 – International Women’s Day. And starting with a bang, for the first time in the museum’s history, works by 17th-century women artists were displayed in the Gallery of Honour, our main stage. The presence of work by women painters in that gallery is now standard policy, and women’s visibility has steadily spread throughout the museum ever since.
So we started in 2021, but we are certainly not the first to study women in art and history. We build on, and are deeply aware of, the work that feminist art historians and historians have been doing since the 1970s. However, at least in the Netherlands, much of this research has mainly stayed in academia and has not been translated to a lasting discourse change in museums like ours. And that is what we aim to change now.
Why do you think so many women artists have historically been hidden or lost in museum archives?
We think it is largely rooted in blind spots from the 19th and 20th centuries, which still linger today and have created entrenched patterns of thinking about women. Art history and history took shape as academic disciplines in the 19th century, and the past was interpreted through contemporary ideas about the roles of men and women, leaving little space for women in active and creative roles.
There is also the fact that women are often hidden behind the names of male relatives in archival records, and thus erased from history. In the 19th and 20th centuries that was, for example, often the case for married women who donated or bequeathed objects to the Rijksmuseum. In our registration system, these women were at times effectively invisible, hidden behind their husband’s names. One of our researchers dedicated three years uncovering the role of women as donors to the museum and working to making them visible.
What was your most recent acquisition, and what about it made you think it had to be added to the Rijksmuseum collection?
Since 2022, thanks to the Women of the Rijksmuseum Fund, we’ve been able to contribute to some 40 acquisitions. One of our favourites is definitely Maria van Oosterwijck’s Vanitas Still Life. Van Oosterwijck (1630-1639) was one of the most important female Dutch painters of the 17th century, alongside Judith Leyster and Rackel Ruysch. She achieved international fame during her lifetime and her paintings were collected and commissioned by monarchs like the ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV.
