Ritratto di una dama con ventaglio

For a long time this portrait was filed under the name of Orazio Gentileschi, the well-known painter, until scholars looked again and agreed it is by his daughter Artemisia, working around 1620. That reassignment matters, because portraits by Artemisia are rare. She built her fame on dramatic biblical heroines, women like Judith with a sword, so a straightforward likeness of an unnamed lady in rich clothes and jewels is unusual in her surviving work. Who the sitter is nobody knows. Some have wondered whether Artemisia painted herself here, though the costly dress makes that unlikely for a working woman. The painting belongs to the Order of Malta in Rome, and the fan she holds, an expensive object then, quietly marks the wealth of whoever she was.