Artemisia Gentileschi Masterwork Discovered Languishing in Storage

A painting misattributed to an unknown French School artist and consigned for more than a century to a dusty storeroom at Molesey, England’s Hampton Court Palace has been found to be an extremely rare masterpiece by Italian Baroque painter Artemesia Gentileschi. The work,Susannaand the Elders, ca. 1638–39, was discovered by a team of curators led by Niko Munz, an art historian at the UK’s Royal Collection. The group had been looking for works thought to have exited the collection in the wake of the 1649 execution of King Charles I.RelatedHELEN FRANKENTHALER FOUNDATION SUED FOR “DESTROYING” PAINTER’S LEGACYBMA CREATES PAID INTERNSHIPS HONORING VALERIE MAYNARD The painting was found in miserable condition owing to decades of neglect. In the course of cleaning and restoring it, conservators discovered on the back of the canvas the initials CR, for “Carolus Rex,” as Charles I was known. A search of official records revealed that it was commissioned by the king’s wife Henrietta Maria around 1638 or 1639.

Gentileschi painted the canvas at the king’s London court, where she was working with her father, Orazio. Though she was one of the few celebrated women painters of the time, she remained somewhat in his shadow until the early twentieth century, when she began toreceive the wide acclaimshe was due. “Artemisia was a strong, dynamic and exceptionally talented artist whose female subjects—including Susanna—look at you from their canvases with the same determination to make their voices heard that Artemisia showed in the male-dominated art world of the 17th century,” said Anna Reynolds, deputy surveyor of The King’s Pictures, in a statement. The work hung over the queen’s fireplace in her private chambers, eventually making its way into the hands of Charles II, and then to Kensington Palace. Its whereabouts were last noted in 1862, when it underwent a heavy restoration.Susanna and the Eldersis currently on view at Windsor Castle outside London..