of Classical Figures and Contemporary Photographic Portraits

Aspasia

Pericle's mistress, and apparently the best the Ladies Wing Curator could come up with, although some would have thought Diotima, who told Socrates all there was to know about all there is to know, would have been a better choice. (Of course Aspasia is prettier.)

Hypatia
c.370 - 415 A.D.

All her writings are lost except for titles and few references to major treatises on geometry, algebra and astronomy. She is reputed to have invented several tools, including instruments for distilling and calculating the specific gravity of water, an astrolabe, and a planisphere. Followed in the footsteps of her father, she taught at the Library of Alexandria, founding a school of Neoplatonism. Legend has it both that she was beautiful and that letters arrived in Alexandria addressed simply to "the philosopher". Like the best philosophers, she would die violently, martyred for her beliefs.

Hildegard of Bingen

(1098-1179)
Not a real philosopher either, but a religious zealot who went round Germany preaching about her visions

Also Hildegard of Bingen

... more visions...

Christine de Pisan

(1365-1430 or thereabouts)
France's 'first woman of letters', a feminist, just war theorist and humanist. Renaissance woman, indeed.

Margaret Beaufort

(1443-1509)
No idea why this one is here, please tell the curator if you know (other than founded some colleges...)

Gabrielle-Emilie du Châtelet

(1706-49)
Tried to combine Leibniz's metaphysics with Newton's new scientific principles...

Harriet Martineau

(1802-76)
Sometimes called 'the first woman sociologist' by people who didn't like her much, actually was a follower of Auguste Comte who became a convinced Necessarian (I'm not making this up).

Germaine de Stael

(1766-1817)
Another French woman of letters, a Revolutionary, a forerunner of the Romantics, and definitely a Real philosopher

Victoria Welby

Perhaps included because the English linguist Lady Welby, had written exchanges with with the likes of H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell between 1903 and 1912....

Stephanie-Felicite de Genlis

French wit who attacked in some 80 bestselling works 'the cleverness the intolerance, the fanaticism, and the eccentricities of the ìphilosophesî of the 18th century'. Shesurvived until 1830.

This way to some More Modern Ladies

Anna Maria van Scherman

... er... a prize for the best answer...