The Passion of Artemisia: A Novel [Paperback]

Recently rediscovered by art historians, and one of the few female post-Renaissance painters to achieve fame during her own era, Artemisia Gentileschi led a remarkably modern life. Susan Vreeland tells Artemisia's captivating story, beginning with her public humiliation in a rape trial at the age of eighteen, and continuing through her father's betrayal, her marriage of convenience, motherhood, and growing fame as an artist. Set against the glorious backdrops of Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Naples, inhabited by historical characters such as Galileo and Cosimo de' Medici II, and filled with rich details about life as a seventeenth-century painter, Vreeland creates an inspiring story about one woman's lifelong struggle to reconcile career and family, passion and genius. A privileged glimpse into an extraordinary woman's soul. —Margaret George

Lovely. —The Atlantic Monthly

Susan Vreeland set a high standard withGirl in Hyacinth Blue....The Passion of Artemisiais even better.... Vreeland's unsentimental prose turns the factual Artemisia into a fictional heroine you won't soon forget. —People

Vreeland has burrowed deeply into the mind of the artist and produced a vivid cast of female characters. —Vogue 

Vreeland's remarkable ability to portray with lyricism and intelligence the life of the artist both at its most practical and most sublime makes this novel an accomplished work of art. —San Francisco Chronicle

INTRODUCTION

What would it take for a woman to be a famous painter in Baroque Italy? Talent. Passion. Determination. Good fortune. Artemisia Gentileschi had all but one.

In my previous novel,Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Magdalena, the fictional daughter l“'