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Lot Essay
This vibrant Saint Cecilia, a recent rediscovery, dates from Artemisia Gentileschi’s first Neapolitan period, which lasted form 1630 until 1638. Prior to this, she had been in Venice, where she had held a central place in the cultural life of the city as a member of Accademia dei Desiosi, an informal literary academy. Artemisia was forced to leave Venice abruptly in 1630, almost certainly to escape the plague then devastating northern Italy. It is likely that she moved to Naples at the invitation of Fernando Afán de Ribera, 3rd Duke of Alcalá (1583-1637), then Viceroy of the city, with whom she had forged close ties whilst in Rome.
Artemisia’s paintings had begun to show a greater sense of dramatic passion and movement during her Venetian period. This carried through into her Neapolitan works, as seen in Saint Cecilia with the gauzy swirl around the Saint’s shoulders and strong intersecting diagonals created by the bold colors within the composition. The comparison with Artemisia’s painting of the same subject that dates to circa 1620 (Galleria Spada, Rome), a solid and very vertically conceived depiction of the subject, is striking in this regard, highlighting the artist’s ever growing freedom of expression. Her paintings at this date also began to display a more pronounced realism, the trait that had come to be so highly prized by Neapolitan and Spanish patrons in the work of Jusepe de Ribera and Diego Velázquez. As Giuseppe Porzio notes (op. cit. p. 114), the present painting, in its composition, precocious coloration and theatricality, closely resembles Ribera’s Saint Lucy of 1637 (Private collection, Madrid), though we cannot know which of the two was painted first.
Early in her career, Artemisia had established a reputation for portraying strong female protagonists, such as Judith, Lucretia, Bathsheba and Susannah. Saint Cecilia, for all her apparent gentleness, was no less firm willed than these Old Testament heroines. According to the late fifth-century legend, she was the daughter of a Roman nobleman, who at a young age had made a vow of virginity to God. Against her will, she was married to Valerian, who, when she told him of her promise of chastity, promised to respect this vow if he were able to see the angel to whom she had made it. Cecilia instructed him to go and be baptized, and on Valerian’s return he found her conversing with the angel. Cecilia was condemned to be burned to death for her beliefs by the prefect Almachius, but the flames did her no harm and her captors were forced to behead her.
Cecilia later became the patron saint of music and musicians because, according to tradition, she sang in her heart to the Lord throughout her pagan wedding feast. For this reason she is often pictured with, or playing an instrument, most commonly an organ as in the present painting. In her Saint Cecilia of circa 1620, Artemisia had depicted the Saint in a bold yellow dress playing a lute; there the instrument was the only attribute of the Saint that the artist chose to include. However, in this Neapolitan conception of the subject, the highlighted attribute is the crown of flowers held aloft by the Saint. The inclusion of a crown of roses and lilies is common in depictions of Cecilia; she and Valerian were supposedly each presented with one by the angel on Valerian’s return from his baptism, yet here Artemisia plays with the trope in an unusual manner by having Cecilia hold rather than wear the flowers. In the legend, the flower crowns were only visible to the faithful, and so it is likely that the artist, by manipulating the common placement of the roses and giving them such prominence within her composition, was highlighting the piety of the patron who had commissioned the work.
Artemisia’s paintings had begun to show a greater sense of dramatic passion and movement during her Venetian period. This carried through into her Neapolitan works, as seen in Saint Cecilia with the gauzy swirl around the Saint’s shoulders and strong intersecting diagonals created by the bold colors within the composition. The comparison with Artemisia’s painting of the same subject that dates to circa 1620 (Galleria Spada, Rome), a solid and very vertically conceived depiction of the subject, is striking in this regard, highlighting the artist’s ever growing freedom of expression. Her paintings at this date also began to display a more pronounced realism, the trait that had come to be so highly prized by Neapolitan and Spanish patrons in the work of Jusepe de Ribera and Diego Velázquez. As Giuseppe Porzio notes (op. cit. p. 114), the present painting, in its composition, precocious coloration and theatricality, closely resembles Ribera’s Saint Lucy of 1637 (Private collection, Madrid), though we cannot know which of the two was painted first.
Early in her career, Artemisia had established a reputation for portraying strong female protagonists, such as Judith, Lucretia, Bathsheba and Susannah. Saint Cecilia, for all her apparent gentleness, was no less firm willed than these Old Testament heroines. According to the late fifth-century legend, she was the daughter of a Roman nobleman, who at a young age had made a vow of virginity to God. Against her will, she was married to Valerian, who, when she told him of her promise of chastity, promised to respect this vow if he were able to see the angel to whom she had made it. Cecilia instructed him to go and be baptized, and on Valerian’s return he found her conversing with the angel. Cecilia was condemned to be burned to death for her beliefs by the prefect Almachius, but the flames did her no harm and her captors were forced to behead her.
Cecilia later became the patron saint of music and musicians because, according to tradition, she sang in her heart to the Lord throughout her pagan wedding feast. For this reason she is often pictured with, or playing an instrument, most commonly an organ as in the present painting. In her Saint Cecilia of circa 1620, Artemisia had depicted the Saint in a bold yellow dress playing a lute; there the instrument was the only attribute of the Saint that the artist chose to include. However, in this Neapolitan conception of the subject, the highlighted attribute is the crown of flowers held aloft by the Saint. The inclusion of a crown of roses and lilies is common in depictions of Cecilia; she and Valerian were supposedly each presented with one by the angel on Valerian’s return from his baptism, yet here Artemisia plays with the trope in an unusual manner by having Cecilia hold rather than wear the flowers. In the legend, the flower crowns were only visible to the faithful, and so it is likely that the artist, by manipulating the common placement of the roses and giving them such prominence within her composition, was highlighting the piety of the patron who had commissioned the work.