Symbolism's Women: More Often the Subject Than the Signature

Symbolism built its name on escape and allegory, and it kept its own rules about gender fairly strict along the way. Look through its canvases and bronzes and women turn up again and again as figures of purity, standing in for an idea rather than holding the brush or the chisel. For a market that prizes the name behind the work as much as the work itself, it is worth remembering how rarely that name belonged to a woman.

With reporting from The Collector.