One Painter, Two Names

Take Judith Leyster, a successful painter in 1600s Holland with her own students. After she died, her paintings kept selling — under the name of her famous neighbor Frans Hals.

For centuries her work hung in museums credited to a man. Only later did scholars spot her personal mark, a tucked-in JL monogram with a star, and start giving the paintings back to her.

There was a quieter form of erasure too. When a fine painting had no obvious male author, it often got filed as "anonymous" or "school of" someone famous — anything but a woman's name.

That label was not neutral. A nameless picture has no story, no biography, no champion. It slips to the back of the storeroom and out of the textbooks, even when it is excellent.