Record price for an Artemisia Gentileschi painting. Go sister!

Artists who modelled themselves on Caravaggio (1571–1610) could borrow whichever asp­ects of his style and method they liked most. Artemisia Gen­t­ileschi (1593-1654) knew Caravaggio's work personally and heard all about her hero, but her work kept a character all its own. Gent­ileschi produced more lyrical paintings than did Caravaggio. And in­corp­orating the cold blues, yellows and violets that were visibly absent from Car­avaggio’s palette, her paintings often reflected local influen­ces.

Nevertheless her work showed a love of Carav­ag­gio’s dark tones and religious iconography. In Judith Beheading Holo­fernes, Ms Gentil­eschi showed the violent struggle of decap­itation emphasised in Caravaggio’s painting. Horror and conviction were both seen in Jud­ith’s face.

Lucretia was an ancient Ro­m­an nob­­lewoman, wife of Roman consul and general Tarquinus. The decision to take her own life was made after she was blackmailed and raped by a “fellow soldier” of Tar­quin­us who killed herself after being raped; the c1624 painting show­ed the bare-breasted victim about to plunge a dagger into her upper chest.

 Lucretia c1624

54 x 51 cm

National Gallery London

Gentileschi presented Lucretia c1624, helping to make Lucretia a popular symbol of female defiance against male tyr­anny. Gentileschi depicted the moment in which Lucretia decided to stab herself. Lucretia was without any trappings of wealth and she wore only a dishevelled slip, perhaps indicating the rape had just occurred. The pared-down image and dramatic lighting, which high­lighted her face and breast, placed the focus firmly on the woman. It presented her as a solitary figure and emph­asised her personal ag­ency in committing suicide, after male rape. Where­as male artists had often depicted the pathos of Lucretia's death, Artem­isia inst­ead focused on the psychol­og­ical consequ­en­ces of the rape. By gras­p­ing both her breast and the dagger, Gentileschi focused on the character's femininity, as well as the imminent suicide.

Another Artemisia Gentileschi painting of Lucretia c1635 was dis­covered only recently in a private collection in Lyon, where it had been stored unrecognised for c40 years. The re-discovered canvas was put up for auction in Paris in Nov 2019 amid a surge of inter­est in her dramatic work. The auction house Artcurial set an estimate of €600,000-800,000 for this painting of Lucretia.

 Lucretia, c1635

 96 x 75 cm

Artcurial auction house, Paris

Note that 17 year old Artemisia was herself raped by her father’s “fellow artist” colleague Ag­os­tino Tassi and had to undergo excruc­iating cross-examination under torture to ver­ify her own testimony. Fort­unately this very public, very humil­iat­ing trial re­sulted in Tas­si’s con­viction, but from then on the young woman was seen as a tainted figure. Except by her beloved father.

Tassi was a married man and couldn’t have even honoured his promise to marry Artemisia. The painting of Lucretia clearly show­ed a desire to shock and perhaps exact revenge, and was there­fore autobiographical. The real Artemisia story could have ended as tragically as Lucretia’s life ended, except that Artemisia decided on a better outcome. She gave a destiny of salvation, to her life as a woman, and to her career as an artist.

As there are only c60 known Artemisia Gentileschis in the world, it was extremely rare for her works to come on the market; thus it might have been difficult to estimate an accurate buying price. But in Oct 2018, another Lucretia painting by Gentileschi sold in Dorotheum Auctions Vienna for €1.9 million. And the Saint Catherine of Alexandria (1616) paint­ing sold in Paris in 2017 for €2.8 million. 

Her value had gone up! By 2019 Gentileschi was rec­ognised as one of the greatest painters of the post-Caravaggio era and one of the few to match the great Baroque master's sense of drama and light. In the event, the c1635 Lucretia sold for €4.8 million in Nov 2019.

Lucretia, c1630–45
133 x 106 cm

Dorotheum Auctions Vienna

Artemisia Gentileschi's prominence is really growing, so the National Gallery in London was planning to stage the first major exhibition of her work in Britain: Ap-Jul 2020 inclusive. Temporarily closed to help contain the spread of coronavirus, the National Gallery will bring together 35 works from around the world at a later date.

Gentileschi was one of the few very talented, widely known Italian Baroque female artists. Her often violent depictions of strong female protagonists from classical mythology enabled modern women to find an Old Master heroine for art history lectures.