Portrait Of Saint Cecilia, Circle Of Artemisia Gentileschi, 1593-1656

Portrait of Saint Cecilia - probably 1630 Circle of Artemisia Gentileschi 1593-1656 ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHIN Born in Rome in 1593, Artemisia was the daughter of Orazio Gentileschi. She was a famous painter familiar with Caravaggio. The young girl learned to paint in her father's studio, who chose her as his tutor. Fine Arts instruction was then forbidden to women. But the lessons turned tragic when Artemisia was raped by Agostino Tassi, her nineteen-year-old friend. To save the young girl's reputation, he promised to marry her, but Agostino Tassi was already married. Orazio filed a complaint with the papal court. Artemisia stood firm and, in an exceptional move, her attacker was sentenced to one year in prison and exile from the Papal States. Artemisia invested the champion of female heroism. All her work is pervaded by this theme, whether with the heroines of ancient and religious history, such as Susanna and the Elders, Esther, Mary Magdalene, Cleopatra… or the heroism from her own life. We understand in fact that after the sexual violence she suffered, she looked to the side of feminine heroism to rebuild herself. In her paintings, Gentilschi often represented stories of heroic women from biblical, mythological and historical stories. Gentileschi herself was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence, and the first known female artist to develop the patronage of an international clientele. Great painters have made presentations of this subject like Raphael, Guido Reni, Nicolas Pussin, P Paul Rubens… without forgetting the remarkable Saint Cecilia by Simon Vouet.