Artemisia Gentileschi
Born in 1593, Artemisia was brought up in an unquestioned patriarchal world. She was - and through her work continues to be - a symbol of female defiance and capability. She drew from her experiences and humanized the female icons represented in her paintings.
Susanna and the Elders was painted during a time when Gentileschi was raped by her teacher, Agostino Tassi, and threatened with sexual blackmail by the accusation of sexual relations with others. This scenario parallels the theme of the painting: Susanna, wife of Joachim, was the victim of blackmail-for-sex by two Elders of the community. They sprang upon her while she bathed, demanded her sexual submission, and threatened to denounce her publicly with accusations of an adulterous relationship - accusations that could bring about a sentence of death with a conviction. She resisted the Elders demands, was brought to trial and subsequently sentenced to death, but was saved at the last minute by a man who claimed she had been convicted by false witness. A sexually distorted and spiritually meaningless interpretation of the theme has prevailed because most artists (and patrons) have been men, drawn by instinct to identify more with the villains than with the heroine.
Susanna and the Elders is one of several of Artemisia's works to be misattributed to her father. (Recently, Danae, a painting at the St. Louis Art Museum previously attributed to Orazio Gentileschi has been reattributed to her6).