The first woman admitted to an Academy of art, and the first to be recognised as an artist, who became, over and above her gender, one of the most iconic figures in art history. Artemisia Gentileschi was a woman raped at the tender age of 18 of by her teacher of perspective; a woman who found redemption in talent and tenacity, traits that she depicted in the many heroines of her works painted after the trial that convicted her rapist, Agostino Tassi, in 1612.

In celebration of her art, from 16 November 2023 to 1 April 2024 there’s a major new exhibition in the Doge’s Apartments at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa – less than 2 hours’ drive from The Mall Sanremo – featuring over 50 masterpieces from Europe and the United States, including her intense, ferocious Judith Slaying Holofernes, Susanna and the Elders (1610) – the artist’s earliest-known signed and dated work – Esther Before Ahasuerus (1628-1635), her famous Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (1638-1639) and, until 8 January, Allegory of Inclination, which Artemisia painted for Casa Buonarroti in Florence in 1616, exhibited here for the first time outside its original home.

The exhibition traces the artist’s career from her early paintings to more mature works, and also gives an overview of the female art scene of the period. It is structured in 10 sections, one of which is devoted to the artistic revolution sparked by Artemisia’s father Orazio Gentileschi on his arrival in Genoa, with a comparison between his version of Judith and Holofernes and his daughter’s.

photo courtesy of Palazzo Ducale di Genova:
Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes
Orazio Gentileschi, Portrait of a Young Woman as a Sibyl
Elisabetta Sirani, Timoclea Kills the Captain of Alexander the Great
Artemisia Gentileschi, Magdalene
Artemisia Gentileschi, Susanna and the Elders