The Women Wax Portrait Modellers That History Forgot

Since the ‘second wave’ of feminism in the 1970s and Linda Nochlin’s seminal essay ‘Why have there been no great women artists’ (1971) research has been increasingly published on not only the portrayal of women in art but women as makers and producers of art. However, one group of women artists who are still largely absent from art historical research are women wax portrait modellers. Artists who have been disadvantaged not only by their gender but by their choice of artistic material.