There are many ways of celebrating the role of women
in paintings in the National Gallery's collection
that goes far beyond the number of pictures
that were actually painted by women artists.
So many women were involved in their production
whether as the commissioner of these works
the users of these works
or indeed, those women we still don't know about
who were probably involved in their making.
So we can really change history here at the National Gallery
by bringing to light these true stories
of women's involvement in the great number of great paintings
that we hold in this collection.
One of my favourites is a huge altarpiece
that was commissioned in Florence in the early 1370s
and it was commissioned by the nuns of a church called San Pier Maggiore.
This was a Benedictine convent
where some of the greatest members of Florentine society lived.
Now what's also interesting about this picture
is that it is involved with a really important civic ritual.
When the Bishop of Florence came into this city
at this time, he was mystically married
with a ring to the Abbess of the convent in front of this altarpiece
on the high altar of the church.
Bizarre story, since they were both celibate
but it was meant to symbolise the marriage
of the Bishop to the city of Florence.
Rosalind Howard is one of the most fascinating figures of the late 19th and early 20th century in Britain.
She was born into an aristocratic family.
She was the Countess of Carlisle
and her husband, George Howard, and herself owned very very great estates.
Now she felt her position entitled her to have some sort of a public role
and she took that much more further forward than any other woman of the elite, of her time.
She was hugely involved in the temperance movement
and she was also a great supporter of women's suffrage.
In 1912, Rosalind presented a number of works to the National Gallery.
She wanted them to be available to a wide public
and to be seen by lots of people.
Probably the most important of these pictures
was a work by the 17th century Italian painter, Annibale Carracci.
And that shows the three Mary's
lamenting over the body of the dead Christ.
And one of the interesting things about it, in the context of these films
is that it's a very unusual depiction of women
only women, and no men mourning over Christ's body.
I have always loved Botticelli's Venus and Mars
it's one of my favorite pictures in the National Gallery's collection
partly because it shows a woman who is really triumphing over a man in a matter of love.
And here you see Venus looking very very beautiful
unlike Mars, who is snoring so much that he can't be woken up
either by the little satires who are blowing a trumpet into his ear
or indeed by the wasps that are buzzing 'round his head.
Botticelli's Venus and Mars belongs to a category called a spalliera.
In Renaissance Florence, men made their biggest expenditure in art at the time of their marriage
and spalliera paintings were made to hang above chests in the bedroom.
There was this sense that, if you saw a beautiful image during conception
you would produce beautiful children.
Although women didn't pay for them
they often thought of them as exemplifying their marriage
which was the most important event in their lives.
I think where we are with the gender gap
is that we're much more aware of it than previous generations have been
When I look back at the twenty years that I've worked in the arts
it's a completely different picture to the way it was when I entered the profession.
And things will change again, more positively, in the years to come.