In Artemisia Gentileschi and Feminism in Early Modern Europe, biographer and scholar Mary D. Garrard writes that women were the legal property of their fathers or husbands when the most famous female painter of the Renaissance was born in 1593 (13). The daughter of painter Orazio Gentileschi and Prudentia Montone was born in Rome. When she turned 12, Artemisia endured the death of her mother, from childbirth, when her youngest brother was born. Her family was artisanal working class, and her urban surroundings were rather violent though bohemian. She began her apprenticeship as a painter when she was 14, under the tutelage of her father. This training path was not uncommon for female painters of the period, although it was rare to find many women artists during the time. Two paintings that can be assuredly attributed to her during this early period for the young artist are “Susanna” and “Lucretia.”  

As a young adult, Artemisia was often isolated in her home, only allowed to visit churches, where she would experience the prominent art of the day. Besides having her father’s somewhat watchful eye, she was poorly chaperoned by the family’s tenant and occasional maid Donna Tutia. In May of 1611, friend and fellow artist of her father’s Agostino Tassi began teaching Artemisia as his pupil about perspective but also developed an infatuation with the young woman, and, with little supervision, would walk her home from the studio. The tête-à-tête resulted in one of the most infamous early Italian judicial cases of theft and assault, which is often described in the placard accompanying all her works displayed in the major museums around the world. Her incredible paintings, which primarily depict female saints and strong historical women; this event; and the trial that followed simultaneously live on in infamy and reverence. 

As an artist, Artemisia was not influenced by the few female artists of the period, such as Lavinia Fontana, who also lived in Rome and was of great esteem, but by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and the Michelangelo. As a resident, she observed circumstances for female artists improved living in Florence. But she wanted to be assessed just as male artists were, always feeling the inequity throughout her lifetime, and commented on the discrepancy through her work. She married Pierantonio Stiattesi, an apothecary who also became her business partner, and they had five children. But only one (Prudentia) survived past the age of five. In October 1614, Artemisia attained Medici patronage, as she was commissioned by Grand Duchess Maria Maddalena for three paintings, including the lost painting noted in the Medici inventory “Diana and the Eight Nymphs.” In 1616, after a year-long application process, she entered the highly selective Accademia Del Disegno, becoming its first woman painter. In 1618, she had autonomy of her dowery, her debts, as well as disengaged from her husband and was likely involved with the young nobleman Francesco Maringhi. By 1624, she and her daughter were in Rome without her husband. She had a second daughter, likely by another father — not her husband — and both her daughters were trained painters, taught by their mother. In the 1630s, the successful painter lived in Venice, then Naples, and by 1640 England. In the 1640s, she eventually returned to Naples, still actively working and being commissioned. And the protofeminist painter of women of history, heroism, and the most defiant and relentless “Judith Slaying Holofernes” (1612–13) died in 1656 at the age of 60. 

Work Cited: Garrard, Mary D. Artemisia Gentileschi and Feminism in Early Modern Europe. Reaktion Books, 2023.