33 Facts About Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi was producing professional work by the age of 15.

Artemisia Gentileschi was known for being able to depict the female figure with great naturalism and for her skill in handling colour to express dimension and drama.

Artemisia Gentileschi's achievements as an artist were long overshadowed by the story of Agostino Tassi raping her when she was a young woman and Gentileschi being tortured to give evidence during his trial.

For many years Artemisia Gentileschi was regarded as a curiosity, but her life and art have been reexamined by scholars in the 20th and 21st centuries, with the recognition of her talents exemplified by major exhibitions at internationally esteemed fine art institutions, such as the National Gallery in London.

Artemisia Gentileschi was the eldest child of Prudenzia di Ottaviano Montoni and the Tuscan painter Orazio Gentileschi.

Artemisia Gentileschi learned drawing, how to mix colour, and how to paint.

Artemisia Gentileschi's earliest surviving work, completed aged 17, is Susanna and the Elders.

The painting shows how Artemisia Gentileschi assimilated the realism of and effects used by Caravaggio without being indifferent to the classicism of Annibale Carracci and the Bolognese School of Baroque style.

Artemisia Gentileschi became a successful court painter, enjoying the patronage of the House of Medici, and playing a significant role in courtly culture of the city.

Artemisia Gentileschi was the first woman accepted into the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno.

Artemisia Gentileschi maintained good relations with the most respected artists of her time, such as Cristofano Allori, and was able to garner the favour and the protection of influential people, beginning with Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and especially of the Grand Duchess, Christina of Lorraine.

Artemisia Gentileschi learned to read and write and became familiar with musical and theatrical performances.

Each artist was commissioned to present an allegory of a virtue associated with Michelangelo, and Artemisia Gentileschi was assigned the Allegory of Inclination.

Artemisia Gentileschi painted her commission in the form of a nude young woman holding a compass.

Artemisia Gentileschi's painting is located on the Galleria ceiling on the second floor.

Artemisia Gentileschi painted a second version of Judith beheading Holofernes, which now is housed in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence.

Prudentia was known as Palmira, which has led some scholars to conclude erroneously that Artemisia Gentileschi had a sixth child.

Artemisia Gentileschi tolerated it, presumably because Maringhi was a powerful ally who provided the couple with financial support.

Artemisia Gentileschi interacted with the Bentveughels group of Flemish and Dutch painters living in Rome.

In 1630, Artemisia Gentileschi moved to Naples, a city rich with workshops and art lovers, in search of new and more lucrative job opportunities.

The 18th-century biographer Bernardo de' Dominici speculated that Artemisia Gentileschi was already known in Naples before her arrival.

The Neapolitan debut of Artemisia Gentileschi is represented by the Annunciation in the Capodimonte Museum.

Artemisia Gentileschi had relations with many renowned artists, among them Stanzione, with whom, Bernardo de' Dominici reports, she started an artistic collaboration based on a real friendship and artistic similarities.

In Naples, Artemisia Gentileschi started working on paintings in a cathedral for the first time.

In 1638, Artemisia Gentileschi joined her father in London at the court of Charles I of England, where Orazio had become court painter and received the important job of decorating a ceiling allegory of Triumph of Peace and the Arts in the Queen's House, Greenwich built for Queen Henrietta Maria.

The fame of Artemisia Gentileschi probably intrigued him, and it is not a coincidence that his collection included a painting of great suggestion, the Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting.

Artemisia Gentileschi had her own commissions to fulfil after her father's death, although there are no known works assignable with certainty to this period.

Artemisia Gentileschi then published a second, smaller book entitled Artemisia Gentileschi around 1622: The Shaping and Reshaping of an Artistic Identity in 2001 that explored the artist's work and identity.

Garrard noted that analysis of Artemisia Gentileschi's oeuvre lacks focus and stable categorization outside of "woman", although Garrard questions whether femaleness is a legitimate category by which to judge her art at all.

Artemisia Gentileschi is known for her portrayals of subjects from the Power of Women group, for example her versions of Judith Slaying Holofernes.

Artemisia Gentileschi aims to place Gentileschi's career in its historical context of taste for dramatic narratives of heroines from the Bible or classical sources.

Feminist scholars suggest that Artemisia Gentileschi wanted to take a stand against the stereotype of female submissiveness.

Artemisia Gentileschi was aware of "her position as a female artist and the current representations of women's relationship to art".