A woman among fossils: Teresa Madasú’s quiet legacy in science

In nineteenth-century Spain, women were almost entirely excluded from geological activity, whether professional or amateur. The first recorded instance of a woman practising geology professionally did not occur until the 1930s. Yet the painter and engraver Teresa Madasú (1848–1917) occupies a distinctive place in this history through her collaboration with the Commission for the Geological Map of Spain. Among a broader cohort of female illustrators working in the shadow of prominent male scientists across Europe and the United States, Madasú stands out as the only woman known to have engaged directly in geological research in Spain at a time when both science and higher education remained largely inaccessible to women. Her fossil illustrations were reproduced in numerous scientific publications, several of which proved pivotal to the institutionalisation of palaeontology in Spain. Despite the significance of her contributions, her presence remained largely unacknowledged, discernible only through the discreet signature inscribed on her lithographic plates.