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Art Guides · Women Artists
10 Famous Women Artists and the Paintings That Made Them Known
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Log in or sign upWho are the famous women artists who changed painting? From a Renaissance portrait of sisters playing chess to an Impressionist mother watching her child sleep, these ten painters built careers in worlds that often tried to keep women outside the studio and the academy.
For a quick guide to widely recognized names and signature works, see our famous female painters list. This guide introduces ten female painters through one work each. They are arranged by birth date, not by a claim that one is more important than another. Every featured painting is available to explore in the ByMuseum collection.
1. Sofonisba Anguissola
Anguissola found a way to show intelligence and character without the grand historical subjects that were largely closed to women painters of her time. In The Game of Chess, her sisters Lucia, Europa and Minerva share a moment of rivalry and amusement. The servant watches from behind. Their glances make the portrait feel like an unfolding conversation rather than a formal display of wealth.
Her reputation reached beyond her native Cremona. She later joined the Spanish court as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth of Valois and painted members of the royal family, though she held no official court-painter title. Her portraits demonstrated that an intimate family scene could carry the same artistic ambition as a public commission. Explore Sofonisba Anguissola's paintings.
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2. Clara Peeters
Clara Peeters made a table of food into a display of close observation. The knife sits near pretzels and almonds; the cheese still bears the small hole left by a tester. On the blade she signed her full name. In the pewter lid of the jug, she hid a tiny reflection of herself.
Very little is known about Peeters' life, which makes the work itself unusually important evidence. These objects are not merely an inventory of a meal. Glass, metal, crumbs and butter let her demonstrate how light behaves on different surfaces. The Mauritshuis calls her an innovator in still-life painting. Explore Clara Peeters' paintings.
OWN IT.Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels, painted by hand $299.00
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Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels, painted by hand
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Gentileschi painted biblical heroines as people who do things, not just symbols to be admired. Her Judith leans her weight into the act of killing the Assyrian general Holofernes while the maid helps restrain him. Strong diagonals and a hard beam of light make the struggle immediate. It is a painting about coordinated effort as much as individual courage.
Trained in Rome by her painter father Orazio, Artemisia worked in Florence, Rome, Venice, Naples and London. Her life has often been reduced to the assault she survived and the trial that followed. The paintings deserve a wider view: she won patrons, developed a formidable command of light and anatomy, and returned repeatedly to women with agency. Explore Artemisia Gentileschi's paintings.
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Judith Slaying Holofernes, painted by hand
Artemisia Gentileschi · oil on canvas, made to order
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Leyster turns from her easel as though someone has just entered the room. She holds a palette and a fan of brushes, dressed for a portrait yet clearly at work. A violinist appears on the canvas behind her. The pairing is witty: his bow makes music, while her brush makes an image.
She was praised in Haarlem during her lifetime and became a master in its painters' guild, an uncommon achievement for a woman in the seventeenth century. Later, works by Leyster were misattributed to male contemporaries, especially Frans Hals. Her self-portrait answers that erasure with a direct, confident look. Explore Judith Leyster's paintings.
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Self-Portrait, painted by hand
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Ruysch's bouquets look spontaneous, but each flower is positioned to make the arrangement move. Pale petals catch the light, darker leaves fall away, and tiny changes in texture keep the eye searching. The flowers may bloom together only in paint. This is an imagined bouquet built from precise knowledge of plants.
Ruysch sustained a career of more than sixty years, commanded high prices and attracted royal patrons. Her success complicates the idea that women artists of the past were always invisible. Some were celebrated in their own time, then left out of the stories later generations chose to tell. Explore Rachel Ruysch's paintings.
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Summer Flowers in a Vase, painted by hand
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Real paintings, real brushworkSee what arrives at your doorBrowse all samples → 6. Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Vigée Le Brun meets the viewer beneath the shadow of a broad straw hat, her palette and brushes clearly visible. The pose is graceful, but the tools matter: she presents herself as both a woman of fashion and the maker of the image. She became a sought-after portraitist at the court of Marie Antoinette.
With the queen's support, she entered the French Royal Academy in 1783, when very few women were admitted. Her association with the monarchy made the Revolution dangerous for her. She left France and continued painting patrons across Europe, turning exile into a long international career. Explore Vigée Le Brun's paintings.
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Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat, painted by hand
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun · oil on canvas, made to order
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Bonheur made animals the center of ambitious paintings. Her monumental The Horse Fair brought her international fame, but a smaller work such as Wild Boars in the Snow shows the same attention to movement and anatomy. One heavy animal crosses the foreground while two others occupy the thin snow behind it. Their bodies feel observed rather than invented for picturesque effect.
She studied animals closely and built a career that crossed national borders. At a time when grand painting was expected to concern heroic people, Bonheur made horses, cattle and wild creatures worthy of sustained attention. Explore Rosa Bonheur's paintings.
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Wild Boars in the Snow, painted by hand
Rosa Maria Bonheur · oil on canvas, made to order
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Real paintings, real brushworkSee what arrives at your doorBrowse all samples → 8. Berthe Morisot
Morisot painted her sister Edma watching over her baby Blanche. The child's face is partly veiled, but the mother's gaze and the arc of her arm lead us toward it. The curtain is more than a soft visual effect. It sets a boundary around a private moment that the viewer can see but cannot enter.
Morisot helped found the Impressionist movement and showed The Cradle at its first exhibition in 1874. Calling her scenes merely delicate misses their rigor. She used loose brushwork, unstable light and bold framing to rethink what a modern painting could be. Explore Berthe Morisot's paintings.
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The Cradle, painted by hand
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Cassatt is often introduced through paintings of mothers and children. The Boating Party shows how adventurous her design could be. The dark back of the rower fills the foreground, cutting across the bright boat and blue water. Opposite him, a woman holds a child. The arrangement feels close, cropped and slightly off balance, as if we too were seated in the boat.
Born in Pennsylvania, Cassatt built her career in France and exhibited with the Impressionists. She made domestic life into a subject of formal experiment, using strong silhouettes, daring viewpoints and color to give everyday relationships their own visual force. Explore Mary Cassatt's paintings.
OWN IT.The Boating Party, painted by hand $299.00
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The Boating Party, painted by hand
Mary Cassatt · oil on canvas, made to order
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Real paintings, real brushworkSee what arrives at your doorBrowse all samples → 10. Cecilia Beaux
Beaux made her name as a portraitist, but Dorothea in the Woods moves the sitter into a landscape. The young woman rests against a tree while foliage surrounds her. Her pale clothing draws the eye, yet the woods remain active rather than serving as a neutral backdrop. Portrait and outdoor scene become one composition.
Beaux was a successful professional artist at a time when American women still faced barriers to training and recognition. Her paintings show that portraiture could be psychologically alert and formally ambitious without abandoning likeness. Explore Cecilia Beaux's paintings.
OWN IT.Dorothea in the Woods, painted by hand $299.00
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Dorothea in the Woods, painted by hand
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Real paintings, real brushworkSee what arrives at your doorBrowse all samples → Questions about famous women artists
Who are some of the most famous women artists in history? Artemisia Gentileschi, Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Sofonisba Anguissola, Judith Leyster, Rosa Bonheur and Rachel Ruysch are important painters represented here. The wider history also includes many artists working in sculpture, photography and modern art.
Who was the first woman artist? There is no known first woman artist. Women made art long before surviving written records named individual makers. Sofonisba Anguissola is one of the earliest female painters in this guide whose career and paintings are well documented.
Were there women painters in the Renaissance? Yes. Sofonisba Anguissola built an international reputation in the sixteenth century, and other women also worked as professional painters. Access to training and commissions varied by place and family.
Which women were Impressionist painters? Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt were central to Impressionism. Morisot participated in the group's first exhibition in 1874; Cassatt later exhibited alongside the Impressionists in Paris.
Why are some female painters less familiar today? Many women faced limits on training, academy membership, travel and major commissions. Some, including Judith Leyster, were celebrated in their own time but later had paintings attributed to men. Their relative fame today does not measure the quality of their work.
Are the paintings here originals? The originals are held by museums and collections. ByMuseum offers hand-painted oil reproductions of the featured works; each featured painting card links to its product page.
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- Museo del Prado, Sofonisba Anguissola at the Spanish court.
- National Gallery, London, Artemisia Gentileschi.
- Mauritshuis, Clara Peeters' Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels.
- National Gallery of Art, Judith Leyster's Self-Portrait.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rachel Ruysch; Vigée Le Brun exhibition.
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Rosa Bonheur's Wild Boars in the Snow.
- Musée d'Orsay, Berthe Morisot's The Cradle.
- National Gallery of Art, Mary Cassatt's The Boating Party.
- Whitney Museum of American Art, Cecilia Beaux's Dorothea in the Woods.
The artists are presented in chronological order. This is a selection of painters represented in the ByMuseum catalogue, not a ranking of individual artists by search volume. The overall topic opportunity comes from ByMuseum's October 2026 OpenSEO research brief.
