The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, has acquired a rare self-portrait by the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, who is widely regarded as the most important female artist before the modern period. The institution purchased “Self-Portrait as a Lute Player” from Christie’s New York using funds from the recently established Charles H. Schwartz Fund for European Art. It is the first painting by a female artist of the Baroque period to enter the Wadsworth Atheneum’s permanent collection.
“Self-Portrait as a Lute Player” is one of only three uncontested self-portraits by Gentileschi that are known to exist. The work was most likely commissioned by the Grand Duke Cosimo II de’Medici and was recorded in the Medici collection as early as 1638. The painting’s whereabouts remained a mystery until it surfaced in a private collection in 1998. It was subsequently featured in major Gentileschi exhibitions around the world. The Wadsworth’s recent acquisition expands the museum’s already-stellar collection of Baroque masterpieces, which includes works by Caravaggio, Claude Lorrain, and Nicolas Poussin.
“Self-Portrait as a Lute Player” will make its public debut alongside works by Fra Angelico, Caravaggio, Artemisia’s father Orazio Gentileschi, Claude Monet, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 2015 following a reinstallation of the museum’s European collections in the Morgan Memorial Building, which is undergoing an extensive renovation.
