Arts and Music Atlas

Works, Makers, Traditions
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Artist

Artemisia Gentileschi

Painters

Artemisia Gentileschi was an Italian Baroque painter, one of the most accomplished followers of Caravaggio's dramatic, dark-lit realism and the first woman admitted to the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence. She is best known for powerful depictions of biblical and mythological heroines, most famously several versions of Judith Beheading Holofernes, rendered with a physical intensity and psychological force unusual for the period. Gentileschi built a successful independent career working for patrons across Florence, Rome, Venice, and Naples at a time when few women could sustain professional painting careers, and her survival of a highly publicized rape trial as a young woman has become an important part of how her work is understood today.

Facts
Birth Year
1593 1
Nationality
Italian 1
Birth Date
1593-07-08 1
Birthplace
Rome, Papal States 1
Death Place
Naples, Kingdom of Naples 1
Training
Trained in her father Orazio Gentileschi's workshop in Rome 1
Disputed
Death Year
1654 1
Exact year of death is disputed; her last known commission was in January 1654 and some scholars place her death in the 1656 Naples plague.
Classification
Gender
Female 1
Artemisia Gentileschi
Filter Results1 entry
Connections

In Movement

Baroque, Movements

A leading Baroque painter and one of the Caravaggisti generation.

Works Created

Painted by Artemisia Gentileschi, c. 1614-1620.

In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Artemisia Gentileschi (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Lead paragraph 1
    was an Italian Baroque painter.
  • Lead paragraph 1 (birth-death parenthetical)
    8 July 1593, after January 1654
  • Early life section
    introduced to painting in her father's workshop, Gentileschi showed much more enthusiasm and talent than her brothers, who worked alongside her. There she learned how to mix colour and how to paint.
  • Naples and the English period section
    She was buried at San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini in Naples, but her tomb was destroyed in the 1950s when the church was demolished.
  • Naples and the English period section (death disputed)
    Her time of death is disputed, but her last known commission was in January 1654.
  • Early life section (birth details)
    Artemisia Lomi Gentileschi was born in Rome on 8 July 1593
  • Gender reference
    She is best known for powerful depictions of biblical and mythological heroines, most famously several versions of Judith Beheading Holofernes, rendered with a physical intensity and psychological force unusual for the period.
View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.