Happy Birthday Artemisia Gentileschi!
On this date in 1593, one of the most significant artists of the Renaissance was born.
On this date (8 July) in 1593, a baby girl was born in Rome to Prudenzia di Ottaviano Montoni and Tuscan painter Orazio Gentileschi. She was named Artemisia and she would become one of the most accomplished artists of the age. Despite a harrowing experience early in her life - she was raped by fellow artist Agostino Tassi, whom she and her family took to court - she followed in her father’s footsteps and pursued a career as an artist. Hugely acclaimed and sought after in her own time, her works centre women: they are often brutal, always powerful and - like Caravaggio - play with colour, light and dark. A mix that is perhaps expressed most clearly in her stunning interpretation of Judith slaying Holofernes from 1614 to 1618. The painting has Holofernes being held down by a maid while Judith hacks off his head; blood streams on the bedsheets. It has been noted by art historians that many of the women in her paintings bear a striking resemblance to the artist herself.
Although she had been painting from a young age in Rome (indeed there’s the tantalizing possibility that she may have encountered her father’s friend Caravaggio), her rise to prominence started when she moved to Florence with her new husband following the case against Tassi. Here, she became the first woman to be accepted into the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, she befriended Galileo Galilei, enjoyed the patronage of the House of Medici, and created works such as Allegory of Inclination (commissioned by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, in celebration of his uncle Michelangelo), Self-Portrait as a Lute Player, Judith and her Maidservant and Judith Slaying Holofernes.
After Florence, she then travelled across Italy painting for noble houses, before journeying to England in 1638 to the court of Charles I, where her father Orazio Gentileschi had been since 1626 - first within the household of the Duke of Buckingham and then working more directly with Queen Henrietta Maria. She is believed to have worked with her father in the painting of the ceiling of the Great Hall of the Queen’s House at Greenwich. One of Artemisia’s most self-assured and powerful paintings is her Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, which formed part of Charles I’s collection.
When the English Civil Wars broke out in the 1640s, she left England for Naples. Her activities and whereabouts during her final years are uncertain. We know that she was taking commissions into the 1650s, but it is thought that she might have died in 1656 during the epidemic of plague in Naples.
As a woman in a male dominated profession, she was rare but not alone. Indeed, her biographer Mary D Garrard has pushed back against the tendency to see Artemisia as “an isolated phenomenon whose radical pictorial assault on gender norms was unconnected to women’s history”. Indeed, during the Renaissance, a small but significant group of professional female artists emerged, such as Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana, who gained professional acclaim and popularity.
In recent years, Artemisia’s life and works have been the subject of intense interest - from new biographies to historical fiction. Back in 2021, experts Dr Bendor Grosvenor, Ferren Gipson and Dr Catherine Fletcher joined forces for a special HistFest event about Artemisia Gentileschi. If you are a paid subscriber, you can watch the recording of the event below.
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