Historically, women in art and the art world were rarely the main show. Usually they were “uninvited guests,” pigeonholed into the roles men had established for them. The Prado, for its reopening, offers an exhibition that analyzes the impact of power structures on female artists and their paths to prominence. The exhibiting women are examined through the lens of Spanish reigns from the 19th to early 20th centuries, from Isabel II to her grandson Alfonso XIII. As Miguel Falomir, the director of the museum observes, “Some of these works may be surprising to our modern sensibility but not for their eccentricity or doom-laden aura, rather for being an expression of an already outmoded time and society.” In a different time and society, how much more might these women have contributed? —E.C.