La Naissance de saint Jean-Baptiste

Artemisia Gentileschi painted this in Naples in the mid-1630s, on a commission that was heading for Spain. The Viceroy of Naples was assembling a set of paintings on the life of John the Baptist for a small hermitage in the gardens of the Buen Retiro, the new royal palace in Madrid, and she was the only woman among the artists he hired. The scene is the saint's birth. The newborn is being washed and swaddled by the women of the household while, off to the right, his elderly father Zacharias bends over a tablet to write the child's name. Gentileschi lingers on the things around them, the heavy folds of cloth and the patterned floor tiles catching the light.