Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi was a very successful Italian Baroque painter and the first woman to be accepted as a member of the Academia di Arte del Disegno in Florence.

Gentileschi’s life and work symbolise that of the classical artist, since she learned her art as a craft passed on from her father and other old masters. Her work came mostly in the form of commissions from wealthy families, showing that the artist’s skill was considered to be much the same as the skills of other crafts experts such as the tailor or the carpenter. 

Photo by David Short found on flickr.