The National Gallery will more than double the amount of work it shows by women artists when it opens a new exhibition dedicated to 17th-century painter Artemisia Gentileschi.
The show, set to open in April 2020, will gather about 35 paintings by the Italian, who has become a feminist icon since her death in about 1656.
There are currently 26 works by women in the gallery, which has 2,300 paintings, sketches and sculptures.
That includes Gentileschi’s Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria which the gallery paid £3.6 million. It went on display today after five months of conservation work. Curator Letizia Treves said: “We didn’t buy the painting because she is a woman but because she is one of Caravaggio’s best followers and has been on our wishlist for many, many years.”
Born in Rome, she was the first woman to be a member of Florence’s Accademia delle Arti del Disegno and counted the Grand Duke of Tuscany and King Philip IV among her clients.
For many years, Gentileschi’s reputation was overshadowed by her ordeal when she was raped aged 18 by another painter, Agostino Tassi, and subjected to a seven-month trial. She is now recognised as one of the greatest painters of her time, but there are only two other paintings by her in this country, one owned by the Queen.
Ms Treves said: “The public really identify with her so the personal story is important but I want to present her as an artist first.”
She added that the conservation work had had “a transformative” effect.
The self-portrait will leave the gallery in March for a short UK tour, including the Glasgow Women’s Library before returning for the show.
National Gallery director Dr Gabriele Finaldi said: “This is the first painting by Artemisia to enter a public collection in the UK … I am delighted that it will be the focus of a national tour in 2019 and a major exhibition in 2020.”
It emerged this week that the gallery had included the painting on a list of works with incomplete provenance between 1933 and 1945, which raised suspicions it might have been looted during the Nazi era. But the gallery said that it was satisfied with its due diligence prior to buying the work and there was “strong evidence” it had been owned legitimately by the same family before the war.
