'By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500-1800': An Ovation for Leading Ladies
Wadsworth Atheneum Exhibition Highlights Pioneering Female Artists Who Are Often Overlooked.

Hartford, Conn.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, women not only became artists in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, but some also thrived. They counted kings, queens, popes and nobles as patrons. Some gained fame; some were elected into exclusive academies; some supported their families. But they were ignored by art history. In recent decades, a few—especially Artemisia Gentileschi —have gained some recognition in monographic exhibitions, but many more early female artists remain obscure.

Anguissola's Self-Portrait

"By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500-1800" at the Wadsworth Atheneum is a welcome, but flawed, attempt to showcase 18 female artists who succeeded against the odds—with, ironically, two asterisks. So few works survive by Virginia da Vezzo and Maria Felice Tibaldi that they are represented only in portraits by their husbands.

The social barriers these women surmounted were steep. Educated mainly in the domestic arts, like embroidery, women in their time were barely allowed to leave home. They could neither join men in drawing classes nor secure apprenticeships. Most learned their artistic skills from a family member or in a convent. And then, once established, they couldn't conduct business on their own—not even buy paint, scholars say.

Gentileschi's "Judith..."

They began by painting what they could see—portraits and still lifes. But many had greater ambitions, and the exhibition curators, Oliver Tostmann, of the Wadsworth, and Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, now at the National Gallery of Art but formerly with the Detroit Institute of Arts, where the exhibition will open on Feb. 6, 2022, have chosen an array of biblical, historical, mythological and allegorical works, too.

Gentileschi begins her star turn at the outset in a display featuring beautifully painted, related portraits created between 1615 and 1617: "Self-Portrait as a Lute Player," "Self-Portrait as St. Catherine of Alexandria " and "St. Catherine of Alexandria." The three illustrate Gentileschi's penchant for portraying strong women and for using herself as a model. Further, they show how she—like other artists—often traced the outlines of an image on more than one canvas. Then she individualized them, moving in this case from an alluring, voluptuous musician who meets the gaze of onlookers to a chaste martyr who looks away.

Galizia's "Judith..."

"By Her Hand" presents two other thrilling Gentileschi moments: On a wall of three Mary Magdalene s, her sophisticated "Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy" (c. 1620-25)—with Mary's bare-shouldered body cutting a diagonal across a dark background—outclasses conventional pictures by Orsola Maddalena Caccia, whose elegantly dressed saint (1620-30?) seems bemused, and by Simon Vouet of his wife, Da Vezzo (c. 1626). And near the end, on its own wall, hangs Gentileschi's "Judith and Her Maidservant With the Head of Holofernes" (c. 1623-25). Newly cleaned, this gleaming masterpiece—in the dramatically lighted style of Caravaggio—captures a tense moment when Judith, ready to leave after decapitating Holofernes, raises her hand to listen for danger and to quiet her accomplice (and astonished viewers). Gentileschi crowns this bold composition with an intimate, candlelit still life on the table beside Judith.

If only other artists in this exhibition of 80 artworks were shown to such advantage. The fault lies in both its thematic installation (debatable sections like "The Female Self," for example), which scatters their artworks, and the shortage of major paintings by some artists, no doubt because the owners were unwilling to lend them.

Sirani's "Portia"

Still, many marvelous works serve as introductions to these under-appreciated artists, starting with Sofonisba Anguissola's delicate, wide-eyed miniature self-portrait (c. 1556). Anguissola, an educated noblewoman known for her sensitive, inventive paintings, sparkles in "The Artist's Sister in the Garb of a Nun" (c. 1551), which she painted in her teens. Later, after she was called to the Spanish court of Phillip II, she painted the charming "Portrait of a Spanish Prince, Probably the Infante Don Fernando" (1573), which conveys both his regal pomp and youthful vulnerability.

Elisabetta Sirani, so famous that tourists came to watch her paint as a "miracle of nature," shines especially bright in "Portia Wounding Her Thigh" (1664), created a year before her death at age 27. This innovative multiple-narrative work, which depicts Brutus' wife, dressed luxuriously in red and gold, piercing herself to prove she could be trusted with knowledge of the conspiracy to murder Caesar, also portrays domestic servants at work in the background.

Carriera's miniature

Rosalba Carriera, internationally renowned for her pastels, is represented by allegorical works from 1715 as well as a delightfully detailed miniature—in watercolor on ivory—of a fashionable woman holding her dog. It measures just 2 15⁄16 by 2 3/16 inches. Fede Galizia, who was among the first Italian artists, male or female, to paint still lifes, is represented by both her naturalistic "Glass Tazza With Peaches, Jasmine Flowers, and Quinces" (c. 1607) and, more ambitious, her version of the Judith story, dated 1596, which is more static than Gentileschi's but renders Judith in sumptuous dress and jewels. The list could go on.

In Detroit, a chronological installation that will include a few more major paintings, such as Anguissola's brilliant full-length "Portrait of Marchese Massimiliano Stampa" (1557), should provide a clearer picture of the individual talents of these artists.

No single exhibition can reverse centuries of neglect. But both museums deserve credit for organizing this revelatory show of these path-breaking Italian women. At the very least, visitors will leave knowing their names and perhaps eager to see more.