Since its founding as a bourgeois collection in the mid-19th century, the MdbK has housed numerous depictions of women in various roles - as saints, mothers, muses, fierce Amazons or lascivious femme fatales - but works by female artists themselves are underrepresented. This is especially true for earlier eras. Why is that? The exhibition seeks answers and offers the opportunity to explore the tension between societal role assignment and independent female artistic practice.