Bringing Renaissance Masterpieces By Women Artists Out Of Museum Basements

Jane Adams, former director of Partnership Relations with Jane Fortune and Advancing Women Artists,  a non-profit organization that was dedicated to rediscovering, restoring, and exhibiting works by women artists found in Florence’s Museums and State deposits, shares how she is continuing to raise awareness about forgotten artists and reclaim their rightful place in history.

Jane explains how meeting Jane Fortune and Advancing Women Artists led to one of the most recent examples of lost art and also one of the most impressive. Sister Plautilla Nelli’s (1524-1588) The Last Supper is the only known depiction of Christ’s last meal by a female artist in the pre-modern age.

The self-taught artist’s massive canvas—about 21 feet long and 7 feet high—is one of the largest works by a woman artist of the pre-modern era in the entire world. Though women were banned from studying anatomy, Nelli defied conventions of the time by taking on a theme reserved for male artists and creating 13 life-size male figures.

There are still so many questions and Jane helps clarify why some of these works were never considered masterpieces. A movement is happening now around Italy's women's art restoration and Jane will bring you into a history that is not just restoring the works of art, but also restoring women’s place in art history. Over the past 10 years, over 70 works of art are now restored.

When you think about it, art has always been used as a means of storytelling and has vastly enriched our lives. The world needs women to inspire us, to raise our spirits, and to serve as role models for our future generation of girls.

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