By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500-1800

Women artists played a vibrant yet overlooked role in Italy around 1600. The first exhibition solely dedicated to Italian women artists at the Wadsworth, By Her Hand explores how important women artists succeeded in the male-dominated art world of the time. Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–after 1654), one of the most fascinating seventeenth-century Italian painters, takes center stage.

The Wadsworth’s Self-Portrait as a Lute Player is compared with a related painting from the National Gallery, London—a rare opportunity to see these paintings side by side. Gentileschi’s pioneering depictions of strong women, such as her Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes from the Detroit Institute of Arts, will also be on view.

Beyond Gentileschi, the accomplishments of a diverse and dynamic group—from the court painter Sofonisba Anguissola (1532–1625), to the Venetian pastel artist Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757), among other talented and virtually unknown Italian women artists—are introduced and celebrated.