Monday, March 18, 2019

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1654) - Rome, Florence, Naples

Artemisia Gentileschi
Susanna and the Elders
1610
oil on canvas
Schloss Weissenstein, Pommersfelden

Artemisia Gentileschi
Cleopatra
ca. 1611-12
oil on canvas
Amedeo Morandotti Collection, Milan

Artemisia Gentileschi
Judith beheading Holofernes
ca. 1611-12
oil on canvas
Museo di Capodimonte, Naples

"The daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, Artemisia received her first education from her father.  Her natural talent was complemented by the privilege of growing up in a household frequented by artists at a time marked by feverish artistic and cultural renewal.  In her early years she trained by reproducing themes and subjects that her father had painted, and carefully followed the innovations Caravaggio had introduced in Rome.  In 1614, after the rape trial against Agostino Tassi, her father's assistant, she was forced to leave Rome and move to Florence.  There she worked independently, was acknowledged as an artist in her own right, and became a member of the Accademia del Disegno.  She lived chiefly in Florence, with short trips to Genoa, England (where she joined her father), and Venice, before her final move to Naples."   

– Rosa Giorgi, from European Art of the Seventeenth Century, translated by Rosanna M. Giammanco Frongia (Getty Museum, 2008)

Artemisia Gentileschi
Self-portrait as Female Martyr
ca. 1615
oil on panel
private collection

Artemisia Gentileschi
Jael and Sisera
ca. 1620
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Artemisia Gentileschi
Judith and Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes
ca. 1618-19
oil on canvas
Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Artemisia Gentileschi
Portrait of a Lady
ca. 1620
oil on canvas
private collection

Artemisia Gentileschi
Penitent Magdalen
ca. 1622-25
oil on canvas
Catedral de Santa Maria de la Sede de Sevilla

Artemisia Gentileschi
Woman playing Lute
ca. 1628-29
oil on canvas
private collection

Artemisia Gentileschi
Esther before Ahasuerus
ca. 1628–35
oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Artemisia Gentileschi
Birth of St John the Baptist
1635
oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Artemisia Gentileschi
Lot and his Daughters
ca. 1636-38
oil on canvas
Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio)

Artemisia Gentileschi
Self-Portrait as Allegory of Painting (La Pittura)
ca. 1638-39
oil on canvas
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Self-Portrait as an Allegory of Painting

A woman in a man's world, a woman
making a claim, choosing her own body
as the source of inspiration, wearing, as Pittura did,
a gold chain bearing the mask of imitation:
her tousled hair and muscled arms,
the shifting gold-green colors of her dress,
her sleeve rolled to the elbow,
the light striking her brow and the shadow
made by the mask-shaped charm against flesh,
the double mirrors she used to paint herself,
the act of it captured mid-gesture,
the paint laid out as her father taught her:
white near the thumb than red, brown, green,
her well-curved body bending around the canvas,
the calculated self-image occupying
the full height of the picture, her unromanticized face,
dramatically lit, composed, the bare bodice,
the rolled-up sleeve, her eyes turned upward,
her right arm raised, its movement frozen,
the mind in motion, her wide, searching gaze.

 – Francine Sterle (2006)

Artemisia Gentileschi
Susanna and the Elders
before 1654
oil on canvas
Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery