The heroine of Italy, Artemisia Gentileschi’s style of exhibiting women with a violent trait has recently staged her as one of the most celebrated and important painters of the Baroque Period. Rediscovered in the 1900s, the artist can intrigue a viewer with the psychological momentum that directed her canvases and their subjects. Perhaps it is the struggles of her life that most viewers and art history readers sympathize with, but to say that Artemisia was a modern woman of the 17th century is absolutely correct. Adoring this popularity, and in a certain way capitalizing on it, Sotheby’s brings the recently discovered David With the Head of Goliath by the artist at its Old Master evening auction, scheduled for 2 July in London.
Estimated for between £1m to £2m, the artwork was only confirmed to be a work of Artemisia after an extensive restoration and analysis by Gianni Papi, Tracey Chaplin, and Simon Gillespie revealed that it not only has her stylistic evidence but also the presence of her signature running down the blade from the hilt of David’s sword, “ARTEMISIA […] / FE[C]I[T] 16[…]”.
A look at the painting’s past auction record reveals that it has already been offered twice, once in 1975 by Sotheby’s, under the attribution of Giovanni Francesco Guerrieri when it went unsold, and later in 2018 by Hampel Auction House as a generic School of Caravaggio for €104,000, just before the attribution was corrected and changed to Artemisia Gentileschi.
It is crucial to know that the painting was previously claimed to be Artemisia’s, much before the confirmation in March 2020. In 1996, Gianni Papi, in the journal Nuovi studi, stated it as a work of Artemisia Gentileschi. Even though Raymond Ward Bissell, the then expert on the artist, dismissed the claim saying that it is the work of Simon Vouet’s circle, the painting came back into headlines in 2013 when Francesco Solinas published an essay in the catalog of Artemisia Gentileschi in Palazzo Blu (Pisa) where he suggested that the work is an autograph repetition of a work that Joachim von Sandrart came across in Naples. In 2018, Roberto Lattuada took a cautious stand, suggesting that it is difficult to come to any conclusion about the attribution on the basis of a mere old black-and-white photograph (Gianni saw a photograph taken in the 1970s to claim it an Artemisia’s work). It was in 2020 that the painting came back to headlines, but for a different reason – the National Gallery in London organized an extensive exhibition of Artemisia’s work, displaying around 30 works of the artist but did not include David With the Head of Goliath as it was only recently discovered, prohibiting it from entering a major exhibition in London. The English collector commented while speaking to the Artnet, in his pursuit of looking for artwork to get exhibited at a major exhibition,
“I think it would be wonderful if the right public collection expressed an interest in placing it on public display, much as we would also love [for the painting] to be at home for a bit.”
The painting portrays one of the most celebrated stories from the Old Testament- David using his Philistine sword to cut off the giant Goliath, representing the triumph of godliness over corruption and virtue over vice. Artemisia’s version of the story is adapted in the vertical form rather than horizontal, further making Goliath twist around and the sword placed diagonally to increase the psychological tension. There might be a possibility that Artemisia added a self-projection in the composition that Michelangelo and Caravaggio did with their compositions of David and Goliath. The most significant part of the painting is David’s relaxed position with the sword while neglecting the focus on Goliath’s head.
Speaking of the market value of the canvas, one thing is certain, the collector is going to receive quite an impressive pay check on his investment 7 years ago.
Featured Image: David With the Head of Goliath by Artemisia Gentileschi; Artemisia Gentileschi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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