Artemisia Gentileschi

The story

A workshop in Rome

Artemisia Gentileschi was born in Rome in 1593, the daughter of the painter Orazio Gentileschi, one of the followers of Caravaggio. At the time girls did not go to art academies and could not frequent artists' workshops, but Artemisia grew up in a painter's house, and learned the trade from her father: how to prepare colours, to draw from life, to arrange figures. She had an uncommon talent. At seventeen, in 1610, she painted her first signed picture, “Susanna and the Elders”, which is striking for its strength and for the honesty with which it shows the fear of its heroine.

Orazio knew his daughter was good and wanted her to keep learning. So he found her a teacher of perspective, a painter named Agostino Tassi, who worked with him. It was a choice that changed her life.

The trial

In 1611 Tassi attacked her and did her violence. Artemisia said so, but for a while nothing happened; Tassi had promised to marry her to put things right, and she waited. When it became clear that he would not, in 1612 Orazio reported him to the pope's court. For almost seven months a public trial was held, and her case was discussed all over Rome.

To check whether Artemisia was telling the truth, the judges ordered a harsh practice of that time: during her testimony she was put to torture, with a cord tightened around her fingers, to see whether she would change her story. Artemisia did not change it. She kept saying: “It is true, it is true, it is true.” Tassi was found guilty and sentenced, but the sentence was not really carried out. For Artemisia, though, the affair stayed with her like a stain for years.

Florence

A few days after the end of the trial Artemisia married a Florentine painter, Pierantonio Stiattesi, and moved with him to Florence. There she found a new environment, where a woman artist could be welcomed with respect. She painted for the Medici family and for Grand Duke Cosimo II, was in contact with Galileo Galilei and became friends with Michelangelo's great-nephew, Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger. In 1616 she was the first woman admitted to the Academy of the Arts of Drawing, the most important association of artists in Florence.

Her paintings often show strong women from the Bible and from history: Judith killing the general Holofernes to save her people, Jael, Lucretia, Cleopatra, Esther. They are not cartoon heroines: their faces are determined, their arms are strong, the blood is real. Her best-known masterpiece is “Judith Beheading Holofernes”, of which she made two versions: one now in Naples, the other in the Uffizi in Florence.

Her letters to clients show that she bargained firmly over the price of her paintings. In one of them, to a Sicilian collector, she wrote that in her woman's soul he would find “the spirit of Caesar”.

After Florence she lived in Rome, Venice and Naples, where she settled from 1630. In 1638 she joined her father in London, at the court of King Charles I, and stayed there even after his death (1639), until about 1642. She died in Naples after 1654, perhaps in the plague of 1656. She had children, and on her own she supported her family, which was rare for a woman in the 17th century.

Forgotten and rediscovered

After her death her name was almost forgotten. For many years some of her paintings were attributed to her father. In the 20th century an art historian, Roberto Longhi, brought her back to attention in 1916. In recent decades great exhibitions have been devoted to her all over the world, and many museums have bought her works. Today she is considered one of the most important women painters of the 17th century.