Self-portrait as the Allegory of Painting

With this 1638-39 self-portrait, Gentileschi took an incredibly bold stand, stating that she was not only a female painter at a time when women were not even admitted into the artistic academies, but the very embodiment of painting itself. She used elements of the "Allegory of Painting" from author Cesare Ripa's 1611 "Iconologia," which described all the popular art motifs. According to Ripa, Painting was a beautiful woman, with full black hair disheveled and twisted in various ways symbolizing the frenzy of the artistic temperament, arched eyebrows showing imaginative thought, a mouth covered with a cloth tied behind her ears, and a chain of gold at her throat from which hangs a mask symbolizing imitation. Gentileschi did not choose to include the cloth over her mouth.