Of Unknown Time: Judith and her Maidservant

The painting done for Art History in my Traditional Media course 8D I was recreating the piece "Judith and her Maidservant" by Artemisia Gentileschi. This piece took me literally 40 hours or so, from February 15th-March 10th... and I'm pretty proud of it.

The entire image was painted in sepia. Fun fact: our class ran out of our shade of sepia so there is a reason why the maid's dress is slightly grayer XD

Artemisia Gentileschi. Born July 1593... she was one of the most prominent painters of the Early Baroque time. She was born to Orazio Gentileschi, also an accomplished painter. She surpassed her brothers in artistic ability, and her father decided to train her.

However, when Artemisia Gentileschi was 18, one of the friends of her father who he hired to tutor her--Agostino Tassi--had cornered her. He proceeded to rape her and blackmail her into more sexual favours until she finally told her father, and won the subsequent 7-month trial. During the trial she had been tortured physically with the idea that "no one can lie under physical torture" and her reputation was forever stained.

Artemisia Gentileschi picked her life up and remarried, becoming a successful painter and friends of many influential people--The Duke and Granduchess of Medici, Galileo Galilei, and Michaelangelo's nephew, among others--and she managed to be the first woman accepted into the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno (Academy of the Arts of Drawing) in Florence, Italy. Her paintings often depict women who have suffered (usually in biblical stories), triumphing or surpassing their tormentors. I do love her art, a lot.

The reference:

"Judith and her Maidservant" 1614. Oil on Canvas. It is said that the woman with the sword, Judith, is a self-portrait, and the head of Holofernes is modeled after Tassi, the man who sexually assaulted her.

We had done grid sketches to blow up the sizes of our studies... this is the transfer of the sketch with conte onto a primed canvas. The clothing folds killed me...

The following process below are parts of the painting as I finished them...

After this, I did not have many reference photos... it's sad but my mother lent our camera to a friend and I mostly have littered bits of progress taken with my ipod camera...