Clio, musa della Storia

Clio was the muse who recorded history, and in 1632 Artemisia Gentileschi painted her holding an open book, then wrote her own name and the date across its pages. For a woman painter of that century, whose work was often credited to the men around her, signing herself into the book of history was a pointed thing to do. She followed the standard handbook of the day for how a muse should look, giving Clio a laurel crown and a trumpet of fame. On the same page she added another name, F. Rosier, most likely François de Rosières, a French nobleman living in Italy after falling out with Cardinal Richelieu, who seems to have commissioned the picture. Artemisia painted it just as she was settling in Naples, where she would spend most of the rest of her life.