Western European painting is not lacking in celebrated women artists; from Marcia in antiquity to Eva Gonzalès in the nineteenth century, from Sofonisba Anguissola in the Renaissance to Michaelina Wautier in the seventeenth century, artists who managed to break the norm of western European society by making a name and a living for themselves in a world of men. Yet, despite achieving fame and recognition in their own time and being celebrated for their talent and skill, they were subsequently erased from the mainstream narrative of art history. This lecture will reintroduce these artists, asking why and how their own paintings and self-portraits were already - in their own time - engaged with this fundamental problem of recognition