« ...there is nothing sadistic here; what is surprising is the feral impassivity of the person who painted all this and who even managed to find that the blood spurting violently can decorate the central gush with two edges of flying droplets! Incredible, I tell you! And then please give Signora Schiattesi - this is Artemisia's married name - time to choose the hilt of the sword that will serve the purpose! Finally, don't you think that Giuditta's only motion is to move away so that the blood doesn't stain her brand new gown of yellow silk? Let’s suppose, in any case, that this is a dress from the Gentileschi household—one of the finest silk wardrobes in 17th-century Europe, second only to that of Van Dyck.»

Roberto Longhi on Judith Beheading Holofernes (Gentileschi padre e figlia, 1916)

Artemisia was the firstborn child of painter Orazio Gentileschi and Prudenzia Montone, who sadly died in childbirth when Artemisia was twelve. Despite her young age, she immediately showed a strong talent for painting, developing her artistic skills in her father’s studio, already a prominent exponent of Roman Caravaggism. Artemisia worked in Orazio’s influential atelier alongside other painters and her six brothers.

In 1612, Artemisia Gentileschi and her family brought to trial Agostino Tassi, her perspective teacher, accusing him of rape. This event marked the end of her work in her father’s atelier. At the time, Tassi was working with Orazio on the decoration of the Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi in Rome.

Tassi emerged from the trial nearly unscathed, while the Gentileschi family had to endure heavy moral condemnation, in addition to the harshness of the investigatory methods of the Tribunal, of which exhaustive documentation remains.1 It is worth remembering that Artemisia agreed to testify under torture, to prove her virginity before the rape, and was subjected to the sibilla, a kind of torture designed for painters, which consisted of binding their fingers with ropes until they bled.

After the trial, her father managed to arrange a marriage for his daughter with Pierantonio Stiattesi, a Florentine painter. This led to her moving to Florence and starting a new chapter in her life, where she was finally able to work independently as a “soloist”. In Florence, Gentileschi gave birth to her first daughter (she possibly had three more children, although historical sources diverge). Artemisia was welcomed into the Accademia Delle Arti Del Disegno, while her husband was rejected: she was the first woman to receive this prestigious honour. She secured important commissions from Florentine families (including the Medici), and befriended Galileo Galilei, who held her in high regard, and Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, who commissioned a painting from her to celebrate his illustrious ancestor and maintained a correspondence with her (which she managed despite having only recently learned to write).

Among the works from this time are The Conversion of Mary Magdalene and Judith with her Maidservant at Palazzo Pitti, as well as a second version of Judith Beheading Holofernes, housed in the Uffizi Gallery.

In 1621, Gentileschi briefly traveled to Genoa, then returned to Rome as an independent woman, finally distancing herself from her husband, and taking her daughter Palmira with her.

After Rome, she went to Venice, where she probably lived between 1627 and 1630, seeking new commissions. She then moved to Naples, where she remained permanently, apart from a brief trip to London to join her father and assist him until his death. That was the opportunity for them to collaborate artistically, after so many years apart.

With the outbreak of civil war in 1642, Gentileschi left England and, after other trips of which little is known, returned to Naples where she died in 1653.

Artemisia Gentileschi's fame was well-established among her contemporaries, but her present-day popularity is often fuelled by the dramatic and romanticised events of her life, and the courage with which she faced them. These elements have almost made her an ante litteram feminist icon. However, this interpretation carries the risk of overshadowing her strength as a painter, capable of making her mark in genres far removed from the “peinture de femme” typical of female artists of the time, who usually didn’t stray from still life, landscapes and portraits, even with extraordinary examples of inventiveness such as those by Sofonisba Anguissola. Artemisia worked on “high” painting: sacred and historical subjects, monumental compositions. She did so with complete mastery of painting, fully embracing the Caravaggesque style with its radical conception of the scene, the contrast that described shapes and colours, the preference for close-up framing that dramatised the relationship with the viewer, the abandonment of conventional iconographic patterns. As a confident professional artist, she knew she could also explore more lyrical tones, more intimate atmospheres. The vast range of her abilities, in short, was fully in tune with the vastness of Baroque.

So it is perhaps a shortchanging of her work if we consider it only as a redemption or sublimation of the violence she suffered; on the whole, her work expresses a poetic power and variety going well beyond her biographical story.

Gentileschi’s paintings clearly put front and center the theme of conflict, in the choice of both themes and characters, both formally and poetically. This is apparent in her paintings of Judith, where the characters and the wounds they inflict definitely do not lack realism. Similarly, her self-portraits and her nudes are very expressive, not at all idealised.

The catalogue of Artemisia Gentileschi's works unfortunately has attribution problems, especially with her father's artistic production. The dating of the works is also unclear. Below is a list based on the volume by Judith W. Mann and K. Christiansen, cited in the bibliography:

Susanna and the Elders, Graf von Schönborn, Pommersfelden, 1610

Madonna and Child, Galleria Spada, Rome, 1610-11

Judith Beheading Holofernes, National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples, 1612-13

Danaë, The Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, (Missouri), ca 1612

Minerva, Sopraintendenza alle Gallerie, Florence, ca 1615

Self-Portrait as a Female Martyr, Private collection, ca. 1615

Allegory of Inclination, Casa Buonarroti, Florence, 1615-16

Penitent Magdalene, Private collection ( Marc A. Seidner Collection, Los Angeles), ca. 1615-16

Mary Magdalene, Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1615-16

Self-Portrait as a Lute Player, Curtis Galleries, Minneapolis, ca 1615-17

Judith and her Maidservant, Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1618-19

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Uffizi Galleries, Florence, ca.1618-19

Jael and Sisera, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, 1620

Cleopatra, Collezione della Fondazione Cavallini-Sgarbi, Ferrara, ca. 1620

Allegory of Painting, Musée de Tessé, Le Mans, 1620-30

Judith Beheading Holofernes, Uffizi Galleries, Florence, ca. 1620

Saint Cecilia, Galleria Spada, Rome, ca. 1620

Cleopatra, Collezione Amedeo Morandotti Collection, Milan, 1621-22 (considered by some scholars to be the work of the father)

Portrait of a Gonfaloniere, Municipal Art Collections, Palazzo d'Accursio, Bologna, 1622

Susanna and the Elders, The Burghley House Collection, Stamford, Lincolnshire, 1622

Lucretia, Gerolamo Etro, Milan, ca. 1623-25

Mary Magdalene as Melancholy, Cathedral, The Museum and Treasury of Seville Cathedral, Seville, ca 1625

Judith and her Maidservant, The Detroit Institute of Arts, ca. 1625-27

Sleeping Venus, The Barbara Piasecka Johnson Foundation, Princeton, New Jersey, 1625-30

Esther Before Ahasuerus, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, ca. 1628-35

Annunciazione, National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples, 1630

Corisca and the Satyr, Private collection, 1630-35

Clio, Muse of History, Palazzo Giuli, Pisa, 1632

Aurora, Private collection, Rome

The Birth of Saint John the Baptist, Prado Museum, Madrid, ca. 1633-35

Cleopatra, Private collection, Rome, ca.1633-35

Lot and His Daughters, The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, ca. 1635-38

David and Bathsheba, Neues Palais, Potsdam, ca 1635

Tarquin and Lucretia, Neues Palais, Potsdam

David and Bathsheba, Palazzo Pitti, Depositi, Florence, ca 1635

The Martyrdom of St Januarius in the Amphitheatre at Pozzuoli, National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples, 1636-37

Proculus and Nicea, National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples, 1636-37

Adoration of the Magi, National Museum of San Martino, Naples, 1636-37

David and Bathsheba, The Columbus, Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, ca. 1636-38

Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, Kensington Palace, London, 1638-39

Venus and Cupid, Private collection, 1640-50

An Allegory of Peace and the Arts, Malborough House, London, 1638-39 (in collaboration with Orazio Gentileschi)

Susanna and the Elders, Moravian Gallery, Brno, 1649

Virgin and Child with a Rosary, El Escorial Palace, Casita del Principe, 1651.


Translated by Alessia Tavaroli.
1 Artemisia Gentileschi, Lettere precedute da Atti processo per stupro, edited by Eva Mencio. The book has been published only in Italian; and it is based on Gentileschi's own letters and on the records of the trial.