Artemisia Lomi Gentileschi was born in Rome, Italy, the eldest of five children and the single daughter of the Tuscan painter Orazio Gentileschi and his wife, Prudenzia. At 12, after her mother died, she began to work as her father’s apprentice, learning the skills of a professional painter. Showing exemplary talents and with the support of her father, she began to create her artworks, and at 17, she completed her earliest surviving piece Susanna and the Elders.
In 1611, at the age of 18, she was rapeed by her father’s colleague, painter Agostino Tassi. After he refused to marry her, a costume meant to restore her dignity, her father pressed charges against him. The main discussion of the trial was not the rape itself but her virginity; if she was not a virgin, there was no legal case. The court exiled Tassi from Rome, though it was never enforced.
In the following month, Gentileschi married the Florentine artist Pierantonio Stiattesi, and the couple moved to Florence. There, she became a successful court painter at the House of Medici. She learned to read and write, attended musical and theatrical performances, and befriended many artists, writers, and thinkers, including Galileo Galilei. During this period, she began to develop her painting style. In 1615, at 23, Gentileschi contributed the painting Allegory of Inclination to the ceiling of the Casa Buonarotti, honoring the life of Michelangelo. The following year, she joined the Accademia Delle Arti del Disegno, becoming the first woman accepted to the prestigious art academy.
In 1620, at 27, she separated from her husband and returned to Rome. There, she painted in her studio, had freedom and independence that was rare for women at the time and had numerous relationships with men. Due to her growing reputation as an artist, she became associated with various patrons, who commissioned her to paint in various genres, such as the Baroque style, known for its straightforward imagery, as seen in her work, Susanna and the Elders from 1622.
In 1626, she moved to Venice before relocating to Naples to seek more job opportunities. Once again, she was able to adapt her style to the demand of her patrons, which at the time requested more religious themes, for example, her painting The Birth of Saint John the Baptist from 1635. During this period, she painted one of her most known self-portraits, Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting.
In 1638, at 45, she traveled to London to collaborate with her father on a series of ceiling paintings in the Great Hall in the Queen House, commissioned by King Charles I of England. In 1642, she returned to Naples, managed a successful studio, and painted until she died in her 60s.
In her lifetime, she broke barriers for a woman in the male-dominated art world and managed to thrive and become a successful and respectful artist. Despite changing painting genres, she remained true to her unique voice and style, which was reflected in the subjects she chose to depict – heroic female protagonists from history, mythology, and the bible, such as Cleopatra, Bathsheba, the Penitent Magdalenes, and especially Judith. Today, she is recognized as one of the most accomplished artists of the 17th-century.
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