A Royal Rediscovery : Artemisia Gentileschi's Susanna and the Elders painted for Henrietta Maria

Fascinating online lecture from London Art Week looking at the discovery of a painting by Artemisia Gentileschi in the Royal Collection.

The talk brought together those involved in the rediscovery and experts on Artemisia to discuss how the painting was identified and why it is an important rediscovery.

Niko Munz, Christchurch College Oxford, described how, while working as part of a project to catalogue and trace works owned by Charles I , he flicked through some files of royal pictures and found an old catalogue sheet from 1862 which had a dull photograph of the work linking the work to Charles and mentioning Artemesia. He then checked old inventories which showed it had hung in Henrietta Maria’s rooms and might have been part of a design to prompt the Catholic faith.

Adelaide Izal, conservator for the Royal Collection, then took us though the historical and technical evidence from confirming that it did date from the period when Artemisia was in England, that it was painted in England as it used canvas that was typical for England at this period and used her pigments.

Letizia Treves, curator of the recent National Gallery show on Artemisia, talked about what the rediscovery had added to our knowledge of the artist from providing convincing evidence of her reusing drawings for figures and reconfiguring compositions.

All of this was ably chaired by Michelle Hall, Editor of the Burlington Magazine which had broken the news of the discovery.

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