Artistic households: the economics of creative work in seventeenth-century London

Abstract

This article offers new insights into women’s occupational identities and the production of art in seventeenth-century London. The identification of a previously overlooked portraitist named Anne Wemyss (1633–98) shows that she was part of a much wider circle of artists and elite patrons active during this period. An exploration of the training afforded to a number of female Painter-Stainers’ Company apprentices that were connected to artistic households, followed by a micro-historical study of the gender division of labour in Mary Beale’s household studio, further credits women’s creative work in the wider economy.