Presentation of my dataset of artists, showing that looking for women in sources about artists is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
Similar to Jane Darnell presentation at Wikimedia Conference of the Netherlands 2 November 2013: Biographies of Women on Wikipedia and 17th-century painters
Similar to Jane Darnell presentation at Wikimedia Conference of the Netherlands 2 November 2013: Biographies of Women on Wikipedia and 17th-century painters (6)
Jane Darnell presentation at Wikimedia Conference of the Netherlands 2 November 2013: Biographies of Women on Wikipedia and 17th-century painters
1. Biografieën van vrouwen op
Wikipedia en 17e eeuwse
schilderessen
Biographies of women on Wikipedia and 17th-century painters
Jane Darnell
Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland 2 november 2013
Utrecht
Jane Darnell
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2. Er zijn minder vrouwen op
Wikipedia
• Er zijn minder vrouwen die bijdragen
• Er zijn minder biografieën van vrouwen
• Er zijn minder bronnen over vrouwen
There are fewer women on Wikipedia
• Fewer women contribute
• There are fewer biographies of women
• There are fewer sources about women
Jane Darnell
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5. My dataset (10,000+ artists) has
grown from these sources:
• 1,843 records from old dictionaries of artist
biographies (Vasari, Van Mander, Houbraken,
Sandrart, etc) - only 47 are women
• 3,644 records Web Gallery of Art - only 37 are
women
• 23,174 records Public Catalog Foundation
• 13,000+ records Wikimedia Commons Creator
pages and Wikipedia articles
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13. Most popular women, mentioned
3, 4, or 5 times in old sources
•
•
•
•
•
(3) Joanna Koerten – paper cutter
(4) Maria Sibylla Merian – insect painter
(4) Rachel Ruysch –flower painter
(5) Anna Maria van Schurman – engraver
(4) Sofonisba Anguissola - painter
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14. 3,644 artists Web Gallery of Art
This is the
number of
women in
this
dataset
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17. 16th & 17th century women in WGA
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Sofonisba Anguissola
•
Eufrasia Burlamacchi
•
Margherita Caffi
•
Rosalba Carriera
•
Lucrina Fetti
•
Artemisia Gentileschi
•
Catharina van Hemessen •
Judith Leyster
•
Louise Moillon
•
Maria van Oosterwijk
Elisabetta Catanea Parasole
Clara Peeters
Rachel Ruysch
Diana Scultori
Elisabetta Sirani
Maria Tesselschade Visscher
Maria Tintoretta
Anna Roemers Visscher
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19. 23,174 artists in PCF dataset
“BBC Your paintings”
This is the
set of data
that I
matched
so far to
my list
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20. Matching PCF data is a work in progress, most artists
before 1750 are matched
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21. My matches from PCF, split by
century of birth
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22. My PCF matches are mostly British, though
early artists are mostly Dutch and Italian
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23. Only 84 women matched to PCF
set
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24. Er zijn minder vrouwen op Wikipedia
• Er zijn minder vrouwen die bijdragen
(6% van de bijdragers op de NL Wikipedia is vrouw)
• Er zijn minder biografieën van vrouwen
(zonder bronnen, “ne”)
• Er zijn minder bronnen over vrouwen
(speld in de hooiberg)
• Only 6% of the contributors on the Dutch Wikipedia are women
• Without sources, biographies are deleted as “not encyclopedic”
• In sources, women are the proverbial “needle in the haystack”
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Editor's Notes
Left Verspronck portrait of Adriana Croes (1599-1656),wisow of HendrickPietersz van Strijp (Haarlem 1590-1639), brewer’s daughter, aged 45, Rijksmuseum, and right, the Hals portrait of linen merchant, hofje founder and bleachery owner Dorothea Berck(1593-1684) , aged 51, wife of Josephus Coymans, Metropolitan Museum of Art
The sources that I have used to expand my collection of records are based on my personal interests and also on what is on Wikipedia pages already. I am heavily influenced by the art itself and not just the biography, so I use Wikimedia as a source, and contribute to it at the same time, adding artists as I go. Not all artists have work on Wiki Commons due to copyright restrictions or other issues.
So far I have over 10,000 artists in a dataset that matches biographiesto some Wikipedia mention or to Wikimedia Commons. In some cases the match is to “redirect pages” that have not been split out into individual articles (yet).
Here’s my set of 10,000 names sorted per birth/work country. Note that the Netherlands, Italy, and the UK are over-represented.Note this is not necessarily a reflection on the demographics of the entire body of World artists, but reflects what I have in my own Wikipedia dataset.
Of the set of 10,000 names, I have over 7,500 records with birthdates, and here they are sorted per birth century.Note that after 1900, copyright restrictions reduce the number of Wikipedia articles.Note this is not necessarily a reflection on the demographics of the entire body of World artists, but reflects what I have in my own Wikipedia dataset. The 17th century is over-represented.
I started this dataset with lists from free sources. With more than 1,000 names from Arnold Houbraken, I slowly added more and more period sources using the online indexes available and through reading biographies. Before I started merging the PCF and WGA datasets I had about 2,500 names altogether.
Old Sources = Hondius, Vasari, Van Mander, Ampzing, Baldinucci, De Bie, Sandrart, Du Piles, Houbraken, Weyerman, Van Gool, Descamps
Of the set of 10,000 names, I have over 7,500 records with birthdates, and here they are sorted per birth century.Note that after 1900, copyright restrictions reduce the number of Wikipedia articles.Note this is not necessarily a reflection on the demographics of the entire PCF dataset, but reflects what I have in my own Wikipedia dataset. The 17th century is over-represented.
Of the set of 10,000 names, I have over 7,500 records with birthdates, and here they are sorted per birth century.Note that after 1900, copyright restrictions reduce the number of Wikipedia articles.Note this is not necessarily a reflection on the demographics of the entire PCF dataset, but reflects what I have in my own Wikipedia dataset. The 17th century is over-represented, and almost all of the early painters up to 1499 are from Vasari and Van Mander.
Both Koerten and Schurman were admired more for their cleverness than for their art.
I started this dataset with 1,000 names from Arnold Houbraken, and then added other period sources and the WGA dataset.
Proportionally there are fewer women included in this dataset than the women included in the old sources.
Sofonisba and Rachel Ruysch are the only two represented in old sources
This painting dated 1629 by Judith Leyster (1609-1660) was long attributed to Frans Hals (1583-1666) because of this engraving by CornelisDanckerts the Elder (1604-1656). The engraving is dated between 1613 and 1656, and is currently considered a copy of Leyster’s painting.left: f. Hals pinxit. center: Seght my of hy, Die lacht is bly? / of weesensschyn, Verberchtgeenpyn. right: C. Da'. Sc. et excud
The largest free database that I have been able to look at is the Public Catalog Foundation, which only lists painters. So far I have made 4293 matches between my dataset and the PCF Your Paintings dataset. In some cases the match is to “redirect pages” that have not been split out into individual articles (yet). On their front page, 61 of their most famous artists are listed – all white, and 7 female.
To enable volunteers to work on the articles they like best, it is helpful to give an indication of the era a painter belongs to.Due to copyright restrictions, most of the artists on the PCF website born after 1900 will not be eligible to have images of their works on Wikimedia Commons. This is the largest group of artists on the whole, so it is even more important for Wikipedia to be able to link out to PCF slideshows in order to enable readers to understand their work.
Of the subset with 23,174 names with dates, I have over 4,200 matches, and here they are sorted per birth century.Note that after 1900, copyright restrictions reduce the number of Wikipedia articles.Note this is not necessarily a reflection on the demographics of the entire PCF dataset, but reflects what I have in my own Wikipedia dataset. The 17th century is over-represented.
Of the subset with 23,174 names with dates, I have over 4,200 matches, and of these I can sort many per country (largest countries only). Note this is not necessarily a reflection on the demographics of the entire PCF dataset, but reflects what I have in my own Wikipedia dataset. Britain, Italy and Netherlands are over-represented.
Of the subset with 23,174 names with dates, I have over 84 matched women, and here they are sorted per birth century. Note this is not necessarily a reflection on the demographics of the entire PCF dataset, but reflects what I have in my own Wikipedia dataset.
Three areas with fewer women (user pages, articles, and references): fewer women who may be interested to write about women, fewer biographies for people to read, and fewer sources to be able to create new biographies