When it comes to Old Master works, many of us think immediately of art made by men—most often Caravaggio, Rembrandt or Vermeer. But there were women artists working in the Early Renaissance all the way through to the Romantic era. It’s just that their work was often overlooked or outright ignored.

That’s changing, thanks in part to the New York-based curator Dr. Virginia Brilliant—who, it mnust be said, has the best name ever. “Whenever someone calls me ‘Dr. Brilliant,’ I feel like a Bond villain who should be stroking a bald cat on a desert island,” she is known to quip.

Most recently, she has put together an exhibition featuring artworks by a group of women who might reasonably be called the Old Master Women. “Ahead of Her Time: Pioneering Women from the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century” is on view at Robilant Voena in New York City through February 10.

The exhibition features thirty stunning artworks by women artists from across Europe, the U.K., and the U.S., bringing to light a number of treasures usually hidden away in private collections. “This isn’t art you’ve typically seen in an art museum,” said Dr. Brilliant.

Expect to see artwork from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, especially from 18th- and 19th-century France. There are also artworks from Italy, including 16th-century paintings by Lavinia Fontana (trained by her father, Fede Galizia, who famously painted still life........

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