The Renaissance Nude, due to open in March 2019, will include around 85 works created from 1400 to 1530 designed to track the development of the “idea and ideal” of the nude throughout Europe. Per Rumberg, speaking for the Royal Academy said curators had been “very keen in the beginning to have an equal balance of men and women”. While he had not done a precise headcount, he said, “there is almost parity between men and women”, adding that they had also worked to gender balance the scholars working on the exhibition.

The National Gallery has acquired its first work by a woman in nearly 30 years, as it pays £3.6million to help realise a “long-held dream” of redressing its lack of female artists. The self-portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi will become just the 21st painting by a female artist held in the gallery’s permanent collection, with women making up less than 1 per cent of its 2,300 works.

Alan Davey, controller of BBC Radio 3 and classical music, said it was “incredibly exciting” to “shine a light” on the composers, explaining: “It means that we are not only expanding the canon of classical music, but also actually helping to redress its historic imbalance when it comes to gender and diversity.” The five women, who include a Viennese prodigy, the first woman to have an opera premiered in Paris, and an African-american composer who played with Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the 1930s, were identified as part of a project to seek out previously lost, forgotten or little known female composers, and make their work available to perform.

"It's rare to see a completely female kitchen team - and one so utterly calm under so much pressure as the place was packed,” it said. “This is a restaurant with an interesting story." Criticism came from members of the public including restaurant critic Jay Rayner, who said: “Dear old @michelinGuideUk is startled that an all female kitchen isn’t full of panicking laydees running around tearfully, wailing at the sky.”