By virtue of the excellence of her work, the originality of her treatment of traditional subjects and the number of her paintings that have survived, Artemisia Gentileschi was the most important woman painter of Early Modern Europe. She was both, disdained and praised by contemporary critical opinion, recognized as having genius, but also seen as monstrous, for she was a woman exercising a creative talent thought to be exclusively male. She ‘’ has suffered a scholarly neglect that is almost unthinkable for an artist of her caliber’’ (Mary D. Garrard).
Artemisia Gentileschi was born in Rome on July, 8th, 1593. as the eldest child of the Tuscan painter Orazio Gentileschi and Prudentia Monotone Gentileschi. Her mother died when she was twelve.
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Those derogatory epitaphs were published about her in 1653, such as: "By painting one likeness after another/ I earned no end of merit in the world/ While, to carve two horns upon my husband's head/I put down the brush and took a chisel instead." According to Art historian Charles Moffat, Artemisia may have committed suicide, which would explain why the cause of her death was not recorded.
Thirty four of her paintings survive today, as well as the near complete transcript of the rape trial, published in full in Mary Gerrard's ‘’Artemisia Gentileschi, The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art’’.
Today she is regarded as one of the most progressive painters of her generation; as an artist who fought with determination—using the weapon of personality and of the artistic qualities—against the prejudices expressed against women painters; being able to introduce herself productively in the circle of the most respected painters of her time, embracing a series of pictorial genres that probably were more ample and varied than her paintings