She was one of the finest artists of the baroque period, but her work was overlooked for centuries. Joanna Moorhead salutes Artemisia Gentileschi ahead of her first UK exhibition

She was one of the finest artists of the baroque period, but her work was overlooked for centuries. A salute to Artemisia Gentileschi ahead of her first UK exhibition

In March 1612 a Roman painter called Orazio Gentileschi petitioned Pope Paul V to go ahead with a legal suit against a fellow artist whom he claimed had raped his daughter. The trial that followed would shock modern-day readers more than the members of the Curia who conducted it: because during the proceedings it was the victim, rather than the accused, who underwent torture.

The entire sorry episode will be recalled in London next month with the unveiling of the first-ever major UK exhibition of the work of Rome-born Artemisia Gentileschi (opens 3 October). She was the young woman whose fingers were crushed in a Vatican courtroom, and she went on to become the best-known female artist of the entire Renaissance and baroque periods. The National Gallery show, delayed from earlier in the year, will include the original record of the trial that many commentators believe is key to understanding the passion, as well as much of the subject matter, of her output.

Artemisia’s re-emergence as a significant artist in an age dominated by great men – The Guardian’s art critic, Jonathan Jones, argues in a new book that she is the most important disciple of Caravaggio – marks a watershed moment. For centuries, women artists have been ignored. But now art lovers as well as curators are discovering that the golden age of art was not the exclusive province of men, despite the massive hurdles women had to overcome to even make it to an easel in the first place.

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