Artemisia Gentileschi: Painter to the Medici and Charles I (Part 2)

How did Artemisia Gentileschi become the first woman to be elected to Florence's Academy of Arts? And why did she end up in London working as court painter to Charles I? Join Alastair and James as they explore how Artemisia continued to forge her own path in the final decades of her remarkable life. If you would like to see the artworks being discussed in this podcast, switch to video in your podcast app at anytime. Artworks in this episode include: Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1616, National Gallery, London Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes c. 1620, Uffizi Gallery, Florence Orazio Gentileschi, Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes, 1624, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes c. 1599, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as an Allegory of Painting, c. 1638, The Royal Collection To see images of the artworks in this episode go to heni.com/storiesofart or visit the Heni Talks YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@HENITalks Hosts: Alastair Sooke and Dr James Fox Additional Research: Catherine Ingram Producer and Editor: Ben Harding Executive Producer: Emma Cahusac Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: The Spirit of Caesar in the Soul of a Woman 00:02:34 Judith Beheading Holofernes 00:09:25 The Revenge Debate: Art and Biography 00:14:38 The Love Letters: Francesco Maria Maringhi 00:21:14 Return to Rome and Marriage Breakdown 00:23:03 Venice and the Plague: Moving Through Italy 00:27:11 Naples and the Cabal 00:33:20 Journey to England: Painting for Charles I 00:35:07 The Self-Portrait: Artemisia or Prudentia? 00:39:00 Final Years in Naples and Legacy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01James Fox?

  Welcome to Stories of Art. I'm James Fox.

• 0:04Alastair Sooke?

  And I'm Alastair Sooke.

• 0:09James Fox?

  With regard to the painting, which I have already finished for your illustrious lordship, I cannot give it to you for less than I asked. I swear, as your servant, that I would not have given it even to my father for the price I gave of you. I'm going to say no more, except what I have in mind, that I think your most illustrious lordship will not suffer any loss with me, and that you will find the spirit of Caesar in the soul of a woman. And thus, I most humbly bow to you, your most illustrious lordship's most humble servant, Artemisia Gentileschi. Now that, Alistair, was a letter written by the one and only Artemisia Gentileschi

• 0:49James Fox?

  to a patron when she was in her mid to late 50s and living in Naples. And for me, Alistair, it captures so much of her personality: the way she hustled, the way she negotiated, her ruthless way of doing business, and importantly, her awareness that she had to constantly prove herself as a woman in a man's world.

• 1:12Alastair Sooke?

  It's so true. I love, I just love that line. "The spirit of Caesar in the soul of a woman", it gets to the heart of what Artemisia's about. And I think that's the thing that makes her so remarkable. She did have to work harder. She had to fight much harder than all of her male peers to get those commissions and to keep her career alive. And I know we described in our first episode in Artemisia the many obstacles that she had to overcome to become an artist in the first place, and we described the really horrific rate that she suffered at the hands of another artist. But Artemisia was a survivor. And in this episode, we're going to carry on the story of her remarkable career.

• 1:52James Fox?

  This then is the second and final episode on the life and work of Artemisia Gentileschi.

• 2:06James Fox?

  Artemisia Gentileschi is now in her twenties. She's married, she's living in Florence. This should be, Alastair, an exciting new start for her. But as we described in the previous episode, it's actually quite awful. Not least because in this period, she has five children in consecutive years and four of them die in infancy or in early childhood. And yet, in this period, the 1610s, she makes some of her greatest works. And I think one of the great paintings that she makes in this difficult period

• 2:37Alastair Sooke?

  Yeah.

• 2:38James Fox?

  is Judith beheading Holofernes.

• 2:40Alastair Sooke?

  Well, this is probably her most famous work. There are a couple of versions of it, variants. I mean, I have to say, James, this is not an easy painting. Again, given who we are and this particular moment in society and the culture at large, but it's not an easy painting to discuss. I mean, to be honest, at any point in history, it's not an easy painting to look at. But which of the two versions do you think we should concentrate on?

• 3:03James Fox?

  I like both of them.

• 3:04Alastair Sooke?

  You love them, you sicko.

• 3:05James Fox?

  I love a beheading. We'll come to the subject. I think, I mean, I think I slightly prefer the Uffizi one. So there's one in the Uffizi in Florence, there's one in Naples. This is another story about an extraordinary woman, just like Susanna and the elders from scripture. So this comes from the Book of Judith. And there is, you know, something's never changed. There's a war happening in the Middle East. There's a war between Israel and Assyria. And the Jewish city of Bethulia is under siege by the Assyrian army, which is governed, ruled by this incredibly formidable general called Holofernes. The city is in ruins. Most of the men are already dead. They're about to surrender.

• 3:50James Fox?

  When Judith, who is this beautiful widow, I presume her husband had been killed in the war, she decides to take revenge. And so one evening, she dresses up in her nicest clothes and she infiltrates the enemy camp and she finds Holofernes' tent. She goes in and she flirts with him outrageously and she gets him extremely drunk. This story actually always reminds me of, I'm sure you've seen Raiders of the Lost Ark.

• 4:15Alastair Sooke?

  Indeed.

• 4:16James Fox?

  You're a child of the 80s like I am. In Raids of the Lost Ark, there's that scene in which Marion Ravenwood, she's been arrested by the Nazis. She's in the tent and she gets the Gestapo officer drunk in order to try to escape. So very similar, very similar. Holoferni thinks he's going to get very lucky. He's actually going to get very unlucky because as soon as he begins to fall into this drunken sleep, she pulls a scimitar, his scimitar from the side and she beheads him. And when, of course, the Assyrian army, his army, find out he's been executed, they flee and Judith saves the city of Bethulia.

• 4:55Alastair Sooke?

  So moment of total gruesome brutality, but we're meant to go, hey, go Judith. I mean, she basically, she saves her people, her town from this oppression. It's a shocking story, but it's also, this is my recollection, it's not necessarily, there are different moments you could tell. If you're an artist and you wanted to pick this, it's clearly really dramatic. I mean, you've described it extremely effectively there, but you don't necessarily dwell on the moment of the story that Artemisia has picked to focus on, right?

• 5:27James Fox?

  No, most artists choose the moment afterwards. So it might be Judith with Holoferni's head on a platter.

• 5:33Alastair Sooke?

  Lovely.

• 5:34James Fox?

  Lovely, tasteful. Gentileschi, as she nearly always does, she chooses the moment, the Scorsese moment, the moment of maximum violence, the moment of maximum intensity. So it's a really, really dramatic take. We should describe what we're looking at, actually. So we're in this dark tent, which is lit only by a shaft of light. And we see two women holding down Holoferni. So Judith is plunging this sword right through Holoferni's neck. Her maid is pinning him down as well. Holoferni is completely in panic. His eyes are wide in panic. He's thrashing around with his arms. He's clawing at their clothes, but the women are steadfast.

• 6:17James Fox?

  And as Judith really gets close to the end of the job, the sword is all the way, almost all the way through. Blood just spatters across the canvas. It spatters over onto her clothes, onto her breasts. It is a brutal, brutal. Intense depiction of this remarkable scene, isn't it, Alastair?

• 6:35Alastair Sooke?

  It's stunning. I mean, I'm almost hearing you describe it kind of speechless because of that dark surrounding. You're in the action, you're there in the melee. We're sort of at the bed level. Holofernes, there's this red drape, is it bed clothing, which seems to be covering his otherwise naked form. And you talk about him being powerful. You can see there's at the centre, underneath the maid's chin, the maid who's pinning him down, there's his fist, and it's massive. It's apparently the size of her head, which seems to be doing an uppercut to her jaw. And Judith herself, well, she's quite big here. I mean, she has these two very, very strong arms, which are these parallel lines like train tracks.

• 7:17James Fox?

  I'd like arms like that.

• 7:19Alastair Sooke?

  Well, I mean, totally. I'm not sure quite how believable the anatomy may be, but it gives a sense of her strength. And there's a sense in the picture of, would it be possible for a woman to do this? And Artemisia saying, yeah, damn right, it would, because, look here, you have a woman who, she's quite matter of fact, don't you think, in the expression? It's like, okay, this is a really terrible thing I've got to do, but I've just got to get on with it. I mean, it's like carving up a massive side of meat, sort of, you know, taking, preparing kebab. All of that blood, which is spurting everywhere. I mean, that's the other thing that I sort of remember. It goes, as you say, you can see it go over her cleavage, it's spattering onto her breasts. But also, this really gorgeous, golden-yellow gown, it's very refined, strangely refined, clothing that she seems to be wearing, that's

• 8:04Alastair Sooke?

  now presumably wrecked because it's covered in Holofernes's blood.

• 8:06James Fox?

  Terrible dry cleaning job after this.

• 8:08Alastair Sooke?

  Totally. I mean, awful, awful. That one's probably going to have to be thrown away. But I, I mean, again, if we come back to the sort of biography of it, because, well, couple of things maybe to think about here. One is, there's a very famous version of this by a character who's already come up a lot in this chat, Caravaggio. In that picture by Caravaggio, which was painted 1519, you see a much younger Judith. She's really, really slender. She doesn't look, frankly, like someone who would be capable of hacking off the head of this Big, robust, burly man, although the man there is really screaming his head off. And the maid is screaming his head off, indeed, yes, yeah, thank you.

• 8:49Alastair Sooke?

  And the maid is this, is old crone, really, this sort of ancient lady. So there seems to be some contrast between, again, it's an opportunity to think, here's a beautiful young woman in some way. Whereas if you then fast forward to, what's the date of the Ophitzi one? It's probably, this is what, sort of 15 years later-ish, that kind of thing.

• 9:07James Fox?

  1613, something like that.

• 9:08Alastair Sooke?

  You suddenly have this, it's not about whether or not Judith is this beautiful young lady. It's whether or not Judith is capable of doing it, and my god, she really is. So then the other question is, okay, she's completely transformed the way you do the scene. How much of her own life story do we read into an image like this? Because traditionally, certainly through the 20th century, that has been the case, hasn't it? Art historians have seen this as a sort of revenge picture. So it's as if Artemisia is Judith and she is hacking off the head of, in this case, Agostino, basically saying, "F you, this is what you did to me."

• 9:52James Fox?

  Yes, you're right. I mean, one of the big things that scholars have done for decades, really, is interpreted this painting through Artemisia's life story and said, this is her getting revenge on Tassi, this is her getting revenge on men, this is her getting revenge on the patriarchy.

• 10:06Alastair Sooke?

  Where do you stand on this, James?

• 10:07James Fox?

  I don't think there's any evidence for that, is there? I, I, I think that, you know, it, it's a lovely, it's a lovely theory and it may well be true. But it's also the case that she might have been commissioned to do this painting by a patron. And so she didn't have a choice in the subject matter.

• 10:23Alastair Sooke?

  She didn't have a choice in the subject matter, but she has a choice in the execution. And I think that, it's tough because there is, it's not like, we don't have the letter in which she says, "I'm working on this painting and it is my revenge picture on Agostino." So we don't have that, clearly. You can only really react, I think here, it's quite subjective, there's an element of instinct. I fully understand that good, proper, contemporary feminist art historians say, "Let's not only look at this painting through the prism of her rape." At the same time, it's kind of hard not to think about it when you're looking at this picture, because the treatment of this subject is so extremely violent, and it surely just is a natural human psychological response.

• 11:08Alastair Sooke?

  Okay, she may have been commissioned to do this scene, but then she might be thinking, you know what, this works for me. You know, this is, there's something, it's almost exorcising this tremendous trauma, which is why I can't help feeling that there's something, just on the subconscious level, which is channeling all of those experiences she's had before, which are here in this picture. And I think in this case, it's maybe valid to consider that as a context.

• 11:36James Fox?

  I think it's perfectly possible, and this would have only happened a couple of years after, you know, after that terrible incident, and an incident that regardless of how she felt about it, did transform and change the direction of her life. She's ended up having to move from Rome, having to marry someone she didn't want to marry, separated from her brothers, separated from her father. I mean, this incident is still playing out. Agostina Tassi's, you know, if you like, violence against her is still playing out in her life. The other point to make, which, which doesn't necessarily require us to think about Tassi, is that something she does throughout her career is she paints women as the actors and the agents of events. Women as not passive creatures to be looked at by men, but as people who are changing

• 12:21James Fox?

  history and embodied with bravery and strength and determination and courage, which of course she has. So I think it's a really fascinating picture. And again, she paints this, she's 20 years old or something. You know, it's absolutely extraordinary that an artist could paint this. And I do think that at her best, and this is Artemisia at her best, it's as good as anything that Caravaggio painted. It's as good as anything painted in that period in Italy, don't you think?

• 12:46Alastair Sooke?

  Well, I mean, it's interesting, she has amped up the Caravaggio element, if you like, but clearly it is indebted in many ways to the great innovations Caravaggio is making slightly earlier. And it's so fascinating to just think back to the idea that her dad is friends with Caravaggio, who's painting altarpieces that appear in a chapel in a Roman church where I think Artemisia's mother is buried. So even if she didn't leave the house very much, she probably did see certain works by Caravaggio, and she will have heard of many of his other kind of famous compositions. Many female artists, many women artists at this time, their paintings are still lives. And this is full on history painting, as this genre is known.

• 13:30Alastair Sooke?

  And it's dramatic and it's unforgettable and it's properly in your face and confrontational. And I think that as well is what gives it, I love the Scorsese analogy, I mean, that gives it that totally contemporary feel. It gives it a real resonance, but there's also that question of the history of taste. It's not always like that. I mean, there are moments when, after her death and sort of for a while, where paintings like this are seen as too shocking, they're not remotely decorous and they're somehow, it's almost like, let's just pretend they don't exist and hang them out of sight.

• 14:05James Fox?

  Actually, did you know that when, if you Google image this search, it censors the image?

• 14:10Alastair Sooke?

  Well, I'm not, to be honest, I'm not surprised.

• 14:12James Fox?

  Anyway, let's get back to her, her life. So she, she makes this painting, she's in Florence, she's doing really quite well in Florence. So she's courting all these wealthy people, she's getting lots of commissions, she's got a bit of a reputation. But a couple of years after she gets married, she falls in love, we think, with this very wealthy, well-to-do Florentine nobleman called Francesco Maria Maringhi. And he is very well-connected and I think actually he plays a significant role in the development of her career. He's making introductions to well-connected people, famous people.

• 14:49Alastair Sooke?

  Do we have any sense of how they met? Where they, what's the?

• 14:51James Fox?

  We don't know. I don't know much about how they met.

• 14:55Alastair Sooke?

  But it is an interesting, that sort of milieu that she's clearly in is maybe not necessarily what she was born into clearly and what she was used to growing up in Rome. But in Florence, again, away from her dad and with that sort of traumatic past behind, she through what dint of force of personality is infiltrating, if you like, not quite the right word, but is suddenly. In those circles with rich, ennobled people, the kinds of people who are commissioning art like this.

• 15:24James Fox?

  She definitely gets a social upgrade in Florence. So she goes from being, having no social life because she's not allowed out of the house, and coming from a family that are pretty much living in a poor part of Rome and struggling to make ends meet, criminal records here and there, to suddenly she's in Florence and she's mixing with the elite. And Meringue is part of the elite. He makes these connections and introductions. He probably supports her and her husband financially. He's certainly providing guarantees for their debts because they're constantly in debt because the husband spends a lot of her money. And they fall into this love affair. And one of the fascinating things is that only 15 years ago, some of their love letters

• 16:09James Fox?

  were rediscovered.

• 16:10Alastair Sooke?

  I did wonder whether you'd bring this up because, again, I mean, it's another, it's really, there's a sensitivity, shall we say, to these letters, some of which appeared in the exhibition, because they are really, in places, quite intimate, is my recollection. I mean, they are, as you say, they're love letters, they're written, and they were never written thinking in a few hundred years, some bloke called James and this, you know, his friend Alistair are going to be sitting discussing them. I mean, it's kind of, it's a really odd concept, but, I mean, would you like to, just to give listeners maybe a flavour, a flavour of the intimacy we're talking about?

• 16:47James Fox?

  Thank you so much.

• 16:48Alastair Sooke?

  Maybe that's one you would like to talk about.

• 16:49James Fox?

  I was longing for you to ask that. Well, I think the first thing is these letters that, as I say, were discovered 15 years ago, they really capture a very modern figure in some ways, a figure who seems very contemporary in many ways.

• 17:04Alastair Sooke?

  You mean on her part?

• 17:05James Fox?

  On her part. We don't have his letters, but, you know, her letters, for instance, one of her letters describes how she's put on lots of weight and she's really unhappy about it. Another letter tells him off not writing longer letters to her. There's a letter in which, perhaps is the one you were suggesting.

• 17:20Alastair Sooke?

  I already know it will be.

• 17:21James Fox?

  Well, there's one letter in which she warns him, she tells him not to masturbate in front of a portrait she sent him. There's one letter I'd like to read.

• 17:29Alastair Sooke?

  Okay, is it not the masturbation?

• 17:31James Fox?

  No, this is not a masturbation letter. I mean, if you make a request, I can always dig that one out. But I only because I think it really captures a sense of her personality and it's, you know, it's a really good opportunity when you can use someone's own words.

• 17:44Alastair Sooke?

  Yes.

• 17:45James Fox?

  This is what she writes. My heart, I have received from your lordship one of those letters that are my comfort and bring me back from death to life. And were you aware of the joy that I feel, I am sure that it's true that you love me, you would equally feel joy. I am yours so long as I still draw breath. The only thing that destroys me is not seeing you near me. And rest assured that I await you as one awaits God's grace. I cannot control my feelings in my heart when I receive letters from you. I have held fast so far, but find it hard to take heart for the future. And I know what state I'm in. I just think, I just think.

• 18:24Alastair Sooke?

  Are we not having a pause to discuss the performance? No, no, no.

• 18:27James Fox?

  Please, yes.

• 18:27Alastair Sooke?

  It slightly felt like someone was coming with a bunch of roses. I'm in a restaurant and they're going to insist. I mean, there is a tremendously, I think it upped the passion. And, well, yeah, I mean, what were you going to say? You wanted to read that one in particular because it's indicative.

• 18:42James Fox?

  I think it's just indicative of the kind of person she was. And I think that when you see the letters in the flesh, the handwriting is terrible. The spelling is awful. There's no punctuation. There's no grammar. She was, of course, not educated as a, as a, as a young girl. She's taught herself how to write and there is a ferocity and there is a strength of will. And, you know, either she is deeply in love with him or she's working him over.

• 19:08Alastair Sooke?

  Oh, do you think that's a possibility?

• 19:10James Fox?

  I think it's a possibility. And her husband knew about this affair.

• 19:13Alastair Sooke?

  Yeah.

• 19:14James Fox?

  And he was writing to Moringi and they were both constantly requesting money. So, you know, there's, there is perhaps a more cynical explanation of the marriage.

• 19:23Alastair Sooke?

  He's being played.

• 19:24James Fox?

  Possibly.

• 19:25Alastair Sooke?

  I didn't read, I'd never considered that as an option, but I suppose it is consistent with the sense of her as just an operator.

• 19:33James Fox?

  She was incredible operator, incredible business, businesswoman. She knew that she needed connections. She knew she needed constant funds. Um, and Moringi provided her with this. They may well have been in love as well. Who knows? But, you know, what ultimately happens is that slowly. Things begin to catch up with her.

• 19:53Alastair Sooke?

  So this is 1610, the moment of Judith and Holoferni's, and she's really establishing herself. She's having all these children, she's doing all the painting, and she's finding time for this extramarital affair, which is tremendously exciting, judging by the letters.

• 20:06James Fox?

  She's busy, what can I say?

• 20:07Alastair Sooke?

  She's busy.

• 20:08James Fox?

  And by the time you get to 1620, so by this stage, she's still only 27. We've been going for ages.

• 20:14Alastair Sooke?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 20:15James Fox?

  She's still only 27. And by this stage, the gossip about her affair with Moringi is getting too much. And she's got lots of creditors, so she's in debt to lots of people. And one day in 1620, she just flees Florence. She's very good on a horse, Alastair, she's very good at riding, and she gets her husband, she gets her daughter, and they ride out of town without warning. She's only halfway through her commission, she owes a picture to the Medici, but she knows she needs to get out. And to find out what happens next, join us after the break.

• 20:56James Fox?

  A reminder that if you want to see the artworks we're discussing, you can switch to video in your podcast app at any time. And if you're enjoying this episode, please consider following Stories of Art wherever you get your podcasts, and maybe even leave a review.

• 21:14James Fox?

  Welcome back to Stories of Art. We are telling the story of one of the great artists of the Italian Baroque, Artemisia Gentileschi. It's now 1620, and we left her fleeing Florence on horseback with her family. Where does she go next? Well, she goes to Rome.

• 21:31Alastair Sooke?

  To the city of her birth?

• 21:33James Fox?

  The city of her birth. She quickly meets up with her father, who she hasn't seen for years. They fall out immediately.

• 21:39Alastair Sooke?

  Of course.

• 21:40James Fox?

  They're Gentileschi's, what can I say? And actually, very soon after arriving in Rome, the marriage breaks down. Have you heard the story about how the marriage breaks down?

• 21:49Alastair Sooke?

  I was aware that they were then estranged, but what's the actual moment for the finale, the coup de grâce?

• 21:54James Fox?

  So it's 1622 now, so they've been in Rome for two years. They're living in Moringi's house, because he has a lovely house in Rome. And one evening, her husband, Stiatezi, hears some noise downstairs, goes downstairs, finds the front door open, Gentileschi is standing on the doorstep, being serenaded by these Spanish musicians.

• 22:15Alastair Sooke?

  What?

• 22:16James Fox?

  Yes, and he is so furious that he grabs a knife and slashes one of them in the face, and that basically precipitates the end of the marriage.

• 22:24Alastair Sooke?

  Sorry, this is, this is, the husband does the slashing in this case.

• 22:26James Fox?

  This is the husband.

• 22:27Alastair Sooke?

  The sort of non-entity, the pathetic guy.

• 22:28James Fox?

  The pathetic guy.

• 22:29Alastair Sooke?

  He suddenly grows a pair, and he's out there defending his woman, is it, or just saying, get rid of, yeah, you slinging hook.

• 22:34James Fox?

  Exactly, so he attacks this, one of the, one of the musicians, and that is really the end of the marriage. Couple of weeks later, he leaves the house, he leaves his wife, he leaves his daughter, he never comes back. As far as we know, they never, ever see him again. So really, from 1622, you know, she's still not even 30 yet, Alastair, she's a single parent, and she's trying to, you know, make a living back in Rome, which is a more difficult place in which to make a living than in Florence.

• 22:59Alastair Sooke?

  It is an eventful life that she leads.

• 23:02James Fox?

  It's an eventful life, and so she, she has a go in Flore, in Rome, it doesn't quite work out, so she, she gets a few commissions here and there, but she's not quite as successful as she would have liked to be. She never quite hits the heights in Rome as she did in Florence.

• 23:17Alastair Sooke?

  And is it worth just exploring briefly, that, what, what is, when she is painting, in terms of the commissions she's getting, we've seen that she's done these, these kind of biblical history paintings, these scenes, Susanna and the Elder, Judith and Holofernes, how typical of her output are things like that, or is she also, does she do still lifes? I mean, she also doing portraits?

• 23:36James Fox?

  She's doing, so she does, she makes a few more images based on the subject of Judith and Holofernes, there's a wonderful one in the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Judith and Her Maidservant. She's painting a lot of female figures, I mean, female figures dominate her oeuvre, I presume partly because... She can't access male models in the same way that a male artist can.

• 23:57Alastair Sooke?

  Well, and quite often they seem to have her features. So in a number of pictures, which again is tantalising for art historians to think, are these paintings self-portraits? Or they don't seem to be. There's one in the National Gallery where it's clearly Artemisia and she's sort of in the guise of one of the martyrs, I think Saint Catherine of Alexandria. And you can see the instrument of her martyrdom. She has her hand resting on this spiked wheel next to her. She's holding the palm frond of a martyr. But it's ambiguous. There's another where she's, is she playing a lute?

• 24:30James Fox?

  Yes.

• 24:31Alastair Sooke?

  And, and I suppose in a way, for me anyway, pictures like that justify slightly the approach that we and others have maybe been taking, where fusing together the work and the life. It's almost like in certain cases, she's encouraging that in what she's painting.

• 24:49James Fox?

  I think so. I think she's, I think she turns the, the, the production of paintings of women into her sort of USP. Because she, remember, she's in a male world, she's in a male industry. She recognises, brilliant businessman, businesswoman as she is, which we've talked about, she recognises, what can I do that is different from all the other artists? And one of the things she can do is she can say, I can make, paint women better than anyone else.

• 25:13Alastair Sooke?

  And, and clearly it works because I think around this time, isn't there a letter from the husband? I think they're back in Rome and essentially he's boasting.

• 25:22James Fox?

  Yeah.

• 25:22Alastair Sooke?

  He's saying that now the kinds of people who come and hang out at our house are princes and cardinals.

• 25:28James Fox?

  Yes.

• 25:28Alastair Sooke?

  If I recall that correctly. And, I mean, that's a step change. So she's now a celebrity. She's really courted by very powerful people. Maybe that's a boast, but we have to believe that there's some evidence of truth because we also know that some of her patrons, as she gets older, are really important rulers in Europe. She's managed to interest and attract the patronage of some key people.

• 25:52James Fox?

  She has, she's very, she, she has a very, she's very well-connected, both in Florence and in Rome. But something goes wrong in Rome. Don't quite know what it is, but by, after five years in Rome, or seven years in Rome, so in 1627. She clearly feels that it's not working out and she leaves, she goes to Venice. She spends three years in Venice where she's something of an it girl. So she's going to all the parties, lots of, you know, she's, she's very, very well known.

• 26:21Alastair Sooke?

  Well, she's musical as well, isn't she?

• 26:23James Fox?

  She's musical as well. So she's connected in various cultural, cultural parts of life there in Venice. But that doesn't work out either. So in 1630, when a plague, a massive plague breaks out in Venice. And that's something we have to remember that when you go back and you think about life 500 years ago, you know, the equivalent of COVID-19 was happening all the time. It was a regular occurrence. There's a massive outbreak of plague in Venice in 1630. It kills a third of the whole city's population. And she sneaks out, you know, like someone leaving London.

• 26:53Alastair Sooke?

  She's on a horse again.

• 26:54James Fox?

  She's on a horse. Um, you know, it's like leaving London during that first lockdown, you know, escaping to the country.

• 27:00Alastair Sooke?

  You weren't one of those, were you, James? That's terrible. You weren't supposed to do that, my friend.

• 27:03James Fox?

  I played by the rules, I understand. Um, she then goes to Naples. So she's doing a grand tour. She doesn't go back to Rome. She doesn't go back to Florence. She goes to Naples.

• 27:11Alastair Sooke?

  So she's heading south and Naples still today has that slightly wilder feel to it as a, as an Italian city. But at the time, I mean, it's, it's big, right? I mean, it's populous, it's bustling and there's an art scene there, which is not entirely welcoming to outsiders.

• 27:27James Fox?

  No, I mean, the, the plus side is Naples is big, as you say. It is bigger than any other city in Italy. It's the second largest city in Europe after Paris. So it's a massive metropolis. It's not a safe place to go, especially if you're a foreign artist. Have you ever heard of the, um, the Cabal of Naples?

• 27:45Alastair Sooke?

  The Cabal, remind me of the Cabal of Naples.

• 27:47James Fox?

  Oh, the Cabal of Naples. So Neapolitan artists did not like foreign artists coming to Naples. And so there was a cabal, it was three artists, like, one of them was Ribera, who wasn't even Neapolitan.

• 27:57Alastair Sooke?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:57James Fox?

  Um, there was Caracciolo, I think there was another one whose name I forget. And they grouped together to try and intimidate and scare off foreign artists because they wanted all the commissions to themselves. And this cabal was terrorised. It was like the, the mafia down in Naples, um, of art. And so for instance, an artist called Domenico Nice guy, travelled down to Naples, they assaulted him, they abused him, he was eventually poisoned and dies. Another artist comes down from Bologna, a man called Guido Rani. His assistant is murdered out on a boat, it's like Talented Mr Ripley. Guido Rani escapes for his life. Caravaggio is attacked, of course, he can give as good as he gets, but he's attacked.

• 28:41James Fox?

  And so it's a very difficult place to arrive. But Naples is big, as we've said, and there is a lot of wealth, because it's run by the Spanish at this point. So there are princes, there are viceroy's, there are great opportunities to paint major pictures. And within, honestly, a few months of arriving in Naples in 1630, she gets her first public commission, she gets an altarpiece and she does this enunciation.

• 29:06Alastair Sooke?

  I mean, it's quite surprising in a way that she hasn't painted an altarpiece, a religious picture for public display, until that moment.

• 29:14James Fox?

  I think it's because she's a woman.

• 29:16Alastair Sooke?

  Right.

• 29:17James Fox?

  I think that's why. I think she was getting private commissions from people who wanted smaller pictures in their homes. And in Florence, she had a number of patrons who were women, actually. So within the Medici family, a couple of other, you know, well-to-do families, there were women who were actually commissioning, which was relatively unusual for Italy at the time. But actually, the idea of getting a public commission where you would be in a church as a woman on your own, painting a fresco, very, very unusual. And so she gets this enunciation painting. It's not a great picture, but, you know, it's an amazing achievement, nevertheless, to achieve this in 1630. She stays in Naples for a bit, she doesn't like Naples at all.

• 29:57Alastair Sooke?

  Well, the weird thing is that she, I mean, okay, there's a moment, I'm sure we'll get to it, where she leaves Naples, and that's an important spell in her career. But essentially, for this last, what, quarter of a century, 20, 25 years of her life, she's predominantly based in Naples, even though she's spending all her time in a letter saying, "God, this place, it's, the cost of living is so high, I hate it here." But, you know, again, it's, this is a theme, clearly the strength and force of Artemisia Gentileschi's personality, but the fact that she can get to the city and somehow get all of those potentially, and clearly from what you've said, in some cases explicitly hostile artists on site.

• 30:38Alastair Sooke?

  Is a real sign that she has a tremendous charisma.

• 30:42James Fox?

  Yeah, she is formidable. She is formidable. And but she is always throughout this time in Naples, she's trying to get out of Naples. She's obviously hoping, like many artists at that time, are trying to get royal commissions. That's what you really want. And so she's constantly writing to people in various different places around Europe to see if she can get out of the city of Naples.

• 31:03Alastair Sooke?

  Isn't she also sometimes actually sending works on spec to rulers, sort of,

• 31:08James Fox?

  Yes.

• 31:09Alastair Sooke?

  You know, you didn't ask for this. I don't know what particularly the subjects would have been, but, and there maybe is a link here with where we, I assume, are going in terms of her life story, because she does finally, she does get out of Naples for a period.

• 31:24James Fox?

  She does. And this brings us back to her father. So she hasn't, she fell out with her father in Rome when she moves back. Shortly after that, Orazio ends up in England. So Charles I has come to power, comes to power in 1625, loves art. And he's bringing foreign artists over, brings Van Dyck, brings Rubens. But the real prize for Charles is an Italian artist. That's what he wants.

• 31:46Alastair Sooke?

  He buys up a lot of Italian Renaissance pictures.

• 31:49James Fox?

  He does.

• 31:49Alastair Sooke?

  I mean, he, you know, he, he also has his head chopped off famously, but he is the, the most sophisticated art collecting British monarch, right?

• 31:59James Fox?

  Probably ever, before or since.

• 32:01Alastair Sooke?

  Yeah.

• 32:02James Fox?

  He's, he's, he's, he's a genuine lover of the arts. And in 1626, so a year into his reign, he brings Orazio over. And Orazio Gentileschi comes over with his sons. And Orazio gets a great deal. I mean, he gets accommodated by the king, he gets very well paid. And Orazio spends the rest of his life in London. And I think he's very happy in London, actually, because he's struggled throughout his career. And finally, he has some security. Finally, he has some stability. He's working there for years. Charles is desperately trying to get Artemisia to come with. And she is resistant, perhaps partly because she doesn't want to,

• 32:46James Fox?

  you know, see her father again. We don't know.

• 32:49Alastair Sooke?

  Although interestingly, she does slightly boast about this, this courting from the English king in letters to other powerful Europeans that she's writing to, where she's saying, oh, yes, Charles has sent so and so, I think her brother, to come and get me because of course I'm needed at the English court is the implication. So you should employ me too, kind of thing.

• 33:09James Fox?

  Yeah, she's always operating. She's always on manoeuvre. She's always trying to build up a reputation one against the other, playing off clients against each other. And eventually she relents. And in 1638, so now she's in her late 40s by this stage, she moves to London. We think this is because Orazio has been commissioned to make this ceiling painting for the Queen's House. So anyone who has been to Greenwich will know there's that great White House that was designed by Inigo Jones. It's one of the first Italianate Renaissance-style buildings in England. And obviously, they want to have Italianate paintings in there. Orazio has started work on it, but now he's coming to the end of his life. He's frail, he's weak, he's sick.

• 33:51Alastair Sooke?

  And this is a big scheme, isn't it? Sort of painting to decorate the ceiling of some central room.

• 33:56James Fox?

  Yeah, it's an enormous scheme. And he's not really up to it physically any longer. And his sons aren't good enough really to help him. And so Artemisia comes in and we presume, we don't know for certain, we presume they work together to finish that painting, which is actually no longer in the Queen's House. It's been moved and it's been very significantly damaged. It's not really much fun to look at now. And within a year of that being done, Orazio dies. So he dies in London in 1639, just before the Civil War begins to take off. And Artemisia makes some other pictures while she's there, including one of her other most famous paintings, which is this. Self-portrait as an allegory of painting.

• 34:41James Fox?

  She makes this in 1638, 1639.

• 34:43Alastair Sooke?

  So this is a very celebrated picture here in Britain, partly because of that connection that you've described. But it's in the Royal Collection. And I don't know, I mean, I know you were keen to discuss this. It's seen as being one of her great masterpieces. It's also this question of whether it's a self-portrait. I think we need to just tackle that head on, right?

• 35:05James Fox?

  What do you think?

• 35:07Alastair Sooke?

  So it's meant to be this allegory of painting. And painting in this allegory is a young woman, very finely dressed, in this case with this elegant green gown. And in this picture, we see this woman who is holding a very delicate paintbrush in her right hand and has a palette with pigments, paints already mixed in her left hand. She's about to start a new composition. And you can see, although initially it looks blank in the background behind this figure, you've got this huge canvas that she's about to paint. And she's glancing off the canvas. It seems as though she's seeking inspiration. You mentioned before Judith in that earlier picture having her sleeves rolled up to get stuck in with Holoferni as well. Similarly here, she's very elegantly attired,

• 35:52Alastair Sooke?

  but that right sleeve has been pulled right up. She's getting to work. How old did you say Artemisia would have been roughly when she paints this?

• 36:00James Fox?

  Well, this is the problem.

• 36:02Alastair Sooke?

  Hmm.

• 36:03James Fox?

  She is, if this is 1638, 1639, she is late 40s. And this is clearly not someone in their late 40s.

• 36:11Alastair Sooke?

  I mean, it's not even by any stretch. So this idea, and people historically have really wanted to see it as a self-portrait. And I don't know, perhaps that gives it a sort of additional aura and intrigue. There is this, I mean, I don't see it at all. I can accept that it's an allegorical representation in which she, Artemisia, the artist, might be projecting herself. But the idea that it's a literal self-portrait, I think, is ridiculous.

• 36:38James Fox?

  I'm glad we agree on that. I thought you were going to disagree with me, but I just don't see it. I think that, you know, remember, she's in her mid to late 40s. She's not applying lots of nice creams. She's someone who has had five babies.

• 36:50Alastair Sooke?

  There's no botox in that, in that time.

• 36:52James Fox?

  There's no botox, she's not eating chia seeds for breakfast. She's in the sun, she's living hard, she's working hard. There's no way that a woman of that, who has had that life story and is at that age, looks like she's in her twenties.

• 37:05Alastair Sooke?

  I do quite like the totally speculative idea that it could be her daughter.

• 37:11James Fox?

  I like that idea as well.

• 37:13Alastair Sooke?

  I mean, inevitably, I've read, I don't think there's any basis in fact for that whatsoever, apart from, we know that this is the one surviving child, as you mentioned. What's her name? Prudencia?

• 37:24James Fox?

  After the mother.

• 37:25Alastair Sooke?

  After the mother. And she is someone who we know did take up painting.

• 37:31James Fox?

  The other thing I would say is that it doesn't even look like Artemisia. You know, in the, in the previous painting, we talked about this, she depicts herself a lot in various guises. She's got a very particular, slightly doughy facial features. She's got these Marlon Brando cheeks. This woman has a much finer, sharper set of features. And she would absolutely, Alistair, match the age of her daughter at this point. So her daughter was in her twenties at this point. She was probably in London with her, helping her out.

• 38:03Alastair Sooke?

  Well, we don't, I mean, that, that I think is worth exploring because in terms of the evidence, there isn't any. It's tantalising to think that in some way this picture may be a portrait of the daughter, or perhaps it's a portrait of Artemisia, this sort of half portrait, while Artemisia, maybe she's not with the daughter, maybe the daughter hasn't come to London. There is this talk earlier where Artemisia is trying to drum up some cash for a dowry. So she's clearly thinking that she needs the daughter to become, to be married off. If that's successful, then it's unlikely that Prudencia has probably come all the way to London with her, if she is by then married. But nevertheless, that doesn't preclude the idea that Artemisia remembers, misses her daughter, loves her daughter. And of course, she's a really pretty good artist.

• 38:47Alastair Sooke?

  She has a good visual memory and imagination and she will be able to recall and evoke. Maybe she even found a model who looks vaguely like Prudencia. I mean, we are building quite a lot. This is a bit of a castle in the air, but it's a very compelling idea.

• 39:00James Fox?

  We're coming to the end of her life story now. So she paints this picture and she finally, in 1639, 1640, returns to Naples.

• 39:11James Fox?

  She's by now very established. The letter we read at the beginning is from that period when she is trying to sell her work, trying to get the best possible price, trying to show everyone how successful and effective she is. And she ends up being quite a celebrity, quite a major figure in Naples towards the end of her life. But as we move into the 1650s and she moves into her 60s, Gentileschi finally, though valuable throughout her life, finally begins to fall silent. And we know she's alive in 1654 because she pays a tax bill, and then that is it. We hear nothing after that. And the latest theory is that she must

• 39:56James Fox?

  have died in a plague, yet another plague.

• 39:59Alastair Sooke?

  Again.

• 40:00James Fox?

  In 1656. And if so, what, she was 56? She was 64, 65 when she dies. And what an eventful life she had. And that, as far as we know, is the end of Artemisia Gentileschi.

• 40:18Alastair Sooke?

  I mean, it's a brilliant story. Thank you for leading us through it in that way. I just, I think in that initial quote, what was the line? This idea that you'll find the spirit of Caesar in the soul of a woman. It's such a fascinating line because in a way, it's almost like protesting too much. It's sort of saying still, then she just knows all of that prejudice that she is having to face again and again and again. She's constantly having to prove herself. But there's that dynamic quality to her that persists and succeeds, which despite all of the adversity that you've outlined so brilliantly, the loss of her mother, the deaths of her children, of course, the terrible moment of the rape with Agostino,

• 41:02Alastair Sooke?

  which, I don't know, it's a sort of mind blowing, even if you leave aside the painting, it's just an incredible story.

• 41:09James Fox?

  Yeah. Well, let's talk about her legacy briefly before we finish, Alistair. What do you think her legacy is? Because in some ways... She doesn't have a legacy at all.

• 41:18Alastair Sooke?

  No.

• 41:18James Fox?

  In some ways, you know, she's, she doesn't really change the direction of the history of art. She doesn't create a school of followers, as Caravaggio does. She doesn't leave a workshop behind. She doesn't have any significant apprentices, apart from her daughter, but we don't really know anything about her daughter. She's forgotten about after her death. She's forgotten for centuries. She's only really rediscovered in the 20th century, in the late 20th century, really. So, from an art historical perspective, in some ways, there's not much of a legacy, but in other ways, her legacy is absolutely huge.

• 41:50Alastair Sooke?

  She's hugely important for our time, and has been since, clearly, the advent of feminism. But what she is, in terms of that legacy, is genuinely a reminder that a woman could be a totally first-rate artist in the 17th century in Europe and win the patronage of all the most important, of people who are rulers, such as Charles the First. That is important to remember because it's quite easy to look back and slightly say, ah, well, until the onset of feminism, there were no female artists of any worth whatsoever. But she really was hugely valued and sought after.

• 42:33Alastair Sooke?

  I think that's very important, but also if you look at the pictures today, they are so direct, they are so immediate.

• 42:40James Fox?

  I think she is one of the first people to make history paintings from a female perspective, giving women agency, making them active, often violent, agents and players in biblical and historical narratives. I don't think people had done that really beforehand. So I think those paintings, at her best, and she is, she's, she's a mixed bag. Some of her pictures aren't great, but at her best, they are as good as you can possibly see in Baroque art. I think there's a, I think she raises really important questions about how we look at the art of the past and how we separate artists from their work. I think we have been, certainly since, you know, since the rise of feminist art history, she has often been seen as this kind of feminist hero,

• 43:22James Fox?

  as this someone who is, you know, fighting against the patriarchy, who is a victim of sexual assault, who is painting her lived experience, who is standing up for women all over the place. That's very inspiring, but it's probably misleading of the kind of person she was. In fact, when you look at the sources, what you see is someone who is out for herself. And she needs to be. She is a business person. She is trying to make money. She's trying to get commission. She's trying to build her status. And I wonder whether sometimes when we discuss artists, particularly women artists, if we try to interpret everything they do through the lens of their gender, or the lens of their sexuality, or the lens of their particular personal or sexual experiences,

• 44:07James Fox?

  there might be something reductive about that, don't you think?

• 44:10Alastair Sooke?

  In theory, on paper, I agree with you entirely. In the case of Artemisia, I'm more tolerant of that approach, in part because what you've described of the achievements of the work, it's almost like that sort of old thing about the tree that falls in the forest. If there's no one around to hear it, you know, has it made a noise at all? And if people haven't been familiar with Artemisia's work, can you talk about that legacy and a sense of it influencing? I know that within Italy, she's much better known and always was, and that was the case through the centuries to a much greater degree than certainly in kind of North West Europe. But also there's the issue of what makes art great. And one of the things that does make it great is that different ages can reinvent it.

• 44:53Alastair Sooke?

  And it can speak to different people at different times and say slightly different things. And I have a lot of time for the idea, unless, I'm not saying you're resistant to the school of feminist art historians who've seen her as this great hero. And I understand that since that initial wave, there's been another round of scholarship by also feminist art historians who would be saying, we can't only think about Artemisia and can't have her life defined, can't have her work defined by the traumatic events in her life. But she herself as an artist seems to foreground herself. She seems to foreground her own life in the pictures. And I think that there's a case for saying,

• 45:35Alastair Sooke?

  you know what, in this case, it's okay. It's okay to think about her in those terms. I think she is a feminist hero. I mean, there's no way around that. Whether or not Judith Holofernis is literally her getting revenge on Agostino Tassi, that's probably a bit too far, but you can't not think about that story when you're looking at a work of art like that. So I have more time, or more tolerance if you like, for that school of art historical approach in this case.

• 46:03James Fox?

  Well, either way, what an incredible figure she is. Extraordinary story, extraordinary work of art. It's been a pleasure talking with you about her, Alistair.

• 46:11Alastair Sooke?

  It has likewise, James. So thank you very much, indeed.

• 46:14James Fox?

  And that's it for this episode. Goodbye.

• 46:17Alastair Sooke?

  Goodbye.

• 46:23James Fox?

  If you've enjoyed this episode, please do follow Stories of Art wherever you get your podcasts and maybe even leave a review.