Artwork
Two Girls as Saint Agnes and Saint Dorothea
Two Girls as Saint Agnes and Saint Dorothea is an oil painting by the Flemish Baroque painting artist Michaelina Wautier. It dates from 1650 and is held in the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The models avert their gazes rather than engaging the viewer, creating an intimate atmosphere.
The painting is a double historiated portrait showing two young girls in the guise of saints. The girl on the right, as Saint Agnes of Rome, wears Oriental-inspired clothing and caresses a lamb, Agnus, the Latin word for lamb, forming the saint's attribute. The girl on the left, as Saint Dorothea of Caesarea, is dressed in mid-17th-century fashion with pearls and a cap; she holds a palm branch, emblem of Christian martyrs and triumph of faith.
Both girls stand near a table bearing a basket of apples and roses, alluding to the legend in which Dorothea promised an unbeliever a basket of heavenly fruit and flowers after her martyrdom. The models avert their gazes rather than engaging the viewer, creating an intimate atmosphere. The choice of saints likely corresponds to the girls' baptismal names, though their identities remain unknown; they probably belonged to a wealthy Brussels family.
Technique & Style
Executed in oil on canvas, this horizontal double portrait dates to approximately 1650. The composition features two young girls depicted as saints, diverging from conventional portraiture by having the subjects avert their gazes rather than engage the viewer, thereby creating an intimate atmosphere. The figure on the right wears attire inspired by Oriental fashion and caresses a lamb, the traditional attribute of Saint Agnes.
Her companion on the left is dressed in mid-17th-century clothing with pearl jewelry and a cap, holding a palm branch that symbolizes martyrdom. A small table beside them supports a basket containing apples and roses, alluding to the legendary promise of paradise associated with Saint Dorothea. The work is classified as a portrait historié, blending contemporary fashion with religious allegory.
History & Provenance
Two Girls as Saint Agnes and Saint Dorothea was produced by Michaelina Wautier in the mid-seventeenth century, with the work dated to 1650. For a long period the painting was attributed to other artists, first to Jacob van Oost the Elder and later to Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert, before being reassigned to Wautier in 2003. The work has since entered the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp in Belgium, where it currently hangs.
The identities of the two girls portrayed remain unknown, though their choice of patron saints likely reflects their baptismal names and they probably belonged to a prosperous Brussels family, given that Wautier was active in that city.
No commission records or earlier ownership chain prior to the Antwerp museum are documented in the available sources.
The painting is held in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen), part of the Flemish Art Collection. It is inventoried as accession KMSKA 1162.
It has been exhibited as part of the museum’s permanent holdings; the work was previously misattributed to Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert and, earlier, to Jacob van Oost the Elder before its attribution was corrected to Michaelina Wautier in 2003.
Context
Two Girls as Saint Agnes and Saint Dorothea has been subject to shifting attribution within the scholarship on seventeenth-century Flemish painting. The work was formerly ascribed to Jacob van Oost the Elder and to Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert before being returned to Michaelina Wautier in 2003, a reassignment that has reshaped assessments of Wautier's oeuvre and her place among Flemish painters of the period.
The painting is catalogued as a portrait historié, a genre in which sitters are depicted in the guise of historical or allegorical figures, here the child saints Agnes of Rome and Dorothea of Caesarea. The identities of the two girls remain unknown, though their baptismal names likely determined the choice of saints. Because Wautier was active in Brussels, the sitters are thought to have belonged to a prosperous Brussels family.
The work is held by the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, part of the Vlaamse Kunstcollectie, and is listed among Wautier's known paintings.
Overview
Michaelina Wautier’s oil painting titled Two Girls as Saint Agnes and Saint Dorothea dates from the mid‑seventeenth century, most likely the 1650s. The work is part of the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, where it is displayed among other Baroque pieces.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Michaelina Wautier, also Woutiers (c. 1614–1689), was a painter from the Southern Netherlands. Only since the start of the 21st century has her work been recognized as that of the outstanding female artist of Flemish…
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