Artemisia Gentileschi
During the last four decades the painter Artemisia Gentileschi (b. Rome 1593—d. Naples 1654?) has become an increasingly popular subject for both scholars and the general public. Against considerable odds, she was trained by her painter father, Orazio Gentileschi, and demonstrated a precocious talent from an early age. Her first known signed and dated painting is a Susanna and the Elders of 1610 (Schönborn Collection, Pommersfelden); she returned to this subject many times during her career, including her last known signed and dated painting of 1652 (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna). In the intervening years she devised innovative compositions for both traditional and not-so-traditional iconographies, with a focus on heroic women from sacred and secular sources—in addition to Susannas, she painted Judiths, Mary Magdalenes, and Lucretias, among others—as well as multiple self-portraits, indicating demand for her abilities and interpretation as well as her image. Her rape by the painter Agostino Tassi in 1611, and the trial that followed in 1612, has been seen by many as a pivotal moment in Artemisia’s life, which it certainly was. But her artistic accomplishments must be understood in the much wider contexts of nascent feminist ideologies and painting in Baroque Europe. During her long career, spent in Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples, and London, Artemisia acquired numerous patrons and correspondents. These included Grand Duke Cosimo II of Florence and his wife, Christina of Lorraine; Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger; Galileo Galilei; the Duke of Alcalá Fernando Enríquez d’Afán de Ribera y Enríquez; Philip IV and his sister Infanta María of Spain; Cassiano dal Pozzo; and Charles I of England. She was named the first female member of Florence’s Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in 1616, and she deftly managed her own thriving business and extensive studio, largely on her own. The last known documented reference is a Neapolitan tax document of 1654; she may have died during the plague outbreak in the city that year. Her burial site, allegedly in the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, has not been identified, but a later text states that it was marked with a now lost stone simply inscribed “HEIC ARTEMISIA,” or “Here Lies Artemisia.” The lack of more detailed information provides an indication of the fame she had achieved during her life. The literature on Artemisia Gentileschi has expanded significantly in recent years, as has her body of work, but not without considerable scholarly disagreement.