Francisca de Nebrija, Humanist and Academic

Francisca de Nebrija/Lebrija (5 July)

Francisca de Nebrija was the daughter of the humanist scholar Antonio de Nebrija and Doña Isabel Montesinos de Solis. Her father was born Antonio Martínez de Cala, but Latinized his name as "Aelius Antonius Nebrissensis"--"Nebrissensis" the Latin version of his native birthplace, Lebrija. In Spanish, he was thus known as Antonio "de Nebrija" or "de Librija." His daughter's name is similarly confusing, at times given as "de Nebrija," at times as "Lebrija."*

The list of female writers and scholars
appended to Nicolás Antonio's 1672
Modern Spanish Writers
(image from Google Books)

Aside from the name of her father and mother, little else is known about Francisca's life. The reason for posting about Francisca de Nebrija today is thus a bit odd--her father died on 5 July 1522. Since I can find no dates for Francisca's life,  not even a birth date nor death date, I am posting about  her  today.

Although no biographical information survives, Francisca de Nebrija does occupy a place in history, however scant the evidence. What is said about her is brief but often repeated: she was tutored by her father, a distinguished poet and lexicographer, she substituted for him as a teacher of rhetoric at the University of Alcalá, and she may have assisted him in his research and writing. 

The entry for Nebrija in The Feminist Encyclopedia of Spanish Literature indicates she was born in the sixteenth century, but since her father was born in 1444 and died in 1522, at the age of 78, it seems likely that Francisca was born in the late fifteenth century. 

As Emilie Bergmann notes in "Spain's Women Humanists," although "[c]enturies of repetition established the commonplace" about both Francisca de Nebrija and her contemporary, Luisa de Medrano--that they lectured on rhetoric at the University of Salamanca--little evidence survives.

For example, in his massive Modern Spanish Writers (Bibliotheca hispana nova, first published in 1672), Nicolás Antonio includes an appendix, "Gynaeceum Hispanae Minervae," listing the names of Spanish women known for their writing--but whose work had (already) been lost (if you click this link, the appendix begins on p. 337). The five-line entry for "Francisca de Lebrixa" notes that she is the daughter of Antonio "Nebrissensis," that she taught the art of rhetoric, and that her teaching was applauded by all. 

The entry for Francisca "de Lebrixa" in Nicolás Antonio's
1672 Modern Spanish Writers
(image from Google Books)

Such an account of Francisca de Nebrija was still being given in the nineteenth century. In his Escritoras y eruditas Espanolas (Spanish [Women] Writers and Scholars), Diego Ignazio Parada included a brief account of Francisca de Nebrija among other "teachers and writers in Latin prose," writing that she substituted for her father when he was ill and when he was occupied with other business. While noting that no work by her hand survives, Parada suggests that she may well have contributed to some of her father's works.

A note of caution is sounded by Mary Agnes Canon in her 1916 The Education of Women in the Renaissance. In a chapter on the educated women in Spain and Portugal during the Renaissance, she calls Francisca de Lebrija "her father's right hand in his literary labors." She also notes that some scholars have "conjectured" that she might have contributed to her father's work. but, Canon observes, there seems to be "no warrant for the conjecture," since nothing survives.

Which takes us back to Bergmann. Like the scholar Beatriz Galindo, "La Latina," Francisca de Lebrija is a female scholar whose scholarship, unfortunately, has been lost. 

*I am using "Nebrija" as this is the way her name is spelled by Elizabeth T. Howe in her brief entry in The Feminist Encyclopedia of Spanish Literature.

The name of Francisca "de Lebrija" is included on the Heritage Floor in Judy Chicago's massive art installation, The Dinner Party.

On Not Finding Women Artists--Again with Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemesia Gentileschi and "Finding" Women Artists

I've posted more than once about the magnificent Baroque painter, Artemesia Gentileschi--the first time, on 8 July 2015, during my year of writing about a historical woman every day, and then again in late 2016, when a major exhibition of her work opened in Rome. 

Artemesia Gentileschi, self-portrait,
St. Catherine of Alexandria

Today is the 425th anniversary of Artemisia Gentileschi's birth, 8 July 1593, and so it seemed only appropriate, after learning yesterday that the National Gallery (London) had just acquired a recently identified painting by Gentileschi, that I would write about her again today. 

As it turns out, the painting is not only by Gentileschi but is of her, a self-portrait as St. Catherine of Alexandria, probably painted around 1615. 

Something of its provenance is outlined by Jonathan Jones, writing for The Guardian: the painting had been in the possession of a French family, "for centuries," its authorship long "forgotten." But the painting was recognized as one of Artemisia Gentileschi's when it was auctioned in Paris in December 2017.

Then, as Gareth Harris notes, it was purchased by the London-based dealer Robilant + Voena. It was subsequently acquired by the National Gallery:

The £3.6 million acquisition has been made possible thanks to the support of the American Friends of the National Gallery, the National Gallery Trust, Art Fund (through the legacy of Sir Denis Mahon), Lord and Lady Sassoon, Lady Getty, and Hannah Rothschild CBE, and other donors including those who wish to remain anonymous. The conservation of the painting has been made possible with Art Fund support.

So what could I possibly complain about? Because, you know, I am bound to complain about something . . . But I was all primed to be overjoyed, until I read this (from Harris's piece in The Art Newspaper): 

The National Gallery’s remit covers Western European painting from around 1250 to 1900, says Gabriele Finaldi, the gallery director. “However, for a great deal of this period women were largely denied the same opportunities that were afforded to men and as a result only a handful were able to succeed in the art of painting. Therefore, works by women artists of this period are very rare compared to works by male artists, and our collection reflects that historical fact,” he says.

You fucking asshole! That's about as calm and measured as I can be when I read what Mr. Gabriele Finaldi--"the art director" of the gallery!--had to say about women artists! (A more extended quote appears in The Florentine, which adds this to his remarks: "However, although it is far more difficult for us to purchase great works by women artists, the National Gallery regularly works with women artists for its exhibitions and other programmes—most recently with Tacita Dean. We have more exciting plans for the future that we will be announcing over the coming months." I'm sorry, I am not mollified.)

Yes, women were denied the same opportunities as men, and yes, there are far fewer women artists in this SEVEN-HUNDRED YEAR PERIOD. But, give me a break--while fewer women painted, and there are fewer paintings by them, his comments are despicable. 

His attitude must account, at least in part, for this: the National Gallery has more than 2300 works in in its collection. Of their "over 2300 works," only 21 are by women. (The twenty-first is the new Gentileschi.) Yes, you read that correctly--my math is really bad, but even I can calculate that 21 is less than 1% of 2300+ works! This is far worse than even the terrible numbers for major museums around the world (see below). 

This Gentileschi painting is the first work by a woman that the Gallery has acquired since 1991!!! More math here: it has been 27 years since the National Gallery's last acquisition of work by a woman artist--and the 1991 acquisition was a gift of five works by Paula Rego. So, of the 21 works by women artists, 5 are from a single artist? And they were a gift, not a purchase?

The National Gallery doesn't make it easy to find the works by women artists in its collection, much less to count them. In fact, if you search the site for "women artists," the only bit you get is this, appended to its announcement of its acquisition of the Gentileschi painting:

THE NATIONAL GALLERY has 20 works by female artists in its collection and four works by female artists on loan to the Gallery (artists include: Henriette Browne, Berthe Morisot, Rachel Ruysch, Rosa Bonheur, Catharina van Hemessen, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Judith Leyster, Rosalba Carriera, Marie Blancour, Vivien Blackett, Madeleine Strindberg, Maggi Hambling, and Paula Rego).

I certainly can't figure out the order of their listing here, because it isn't alphabetical or chronological. Whaaaaat? What is going on? 

But trying to make sense of the listing's tally of paintings by women in its collection is even more confusing. The Gallery claims to have "20 works by female artists in its collection," and that does not seem to include the new Artemesia Gentileschi acquisition. If you search the National Gallery's collection, you'll find these artists listed: Marie Blancour (mid-seventeenth century, 1 painting), Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899, 1 painting), Henriette Browne (1829-1901, 1 painting), Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757, 2 paintings), Catharina van Hemessen (1527/8-after 1566, 2 paintings), Judith Leyster (1609-1660, 1 painting), Berthe Morisot (1841-1895, 2 paintings), Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750, 2 paintings), Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842, 2 paintings).

But that's only 15 paintings (by 9 artists). If you add in the 5 paintings by Rego acquired in 1991, that does bring the total to 20. 

But the NG "Artist A to Z" doesn't list Paula Rego or any of her 5 paintings in its collection.  Nor does it include any work by Vivien Blackett, Madeleine Strindberg, or Maggi Hambling, all of whom are named in the National Gallery's brief paragraph about the women artists in their collection, so maybe the work isn't part of the collection but "on loan." (Note: This information was correct on 8 July 2018, when this post was written--for updates, see below.)

And it looks like, even if you go by their list, the NG has work in its collection by only 14 women artists--that's including Gentileschi as well as Blackett, Strindberg, Hambling, and Rego--who, as I have said, are named in the bit I've quoted from the NG website (above), but who are NOT included in the website's index of artists in its collection. 

So who knows? The National Gallery doesn't make it clear.

But what is clear? It's clear that despite its recent acquisition of the Gentileschi painting and the statement of Hannah Rothschild, chair of the Gallery's Board of Trustees, that the "acquisition of this great painting realises a long-held dream of increasing the National Gallery's collection of paintings by important women artists," this is pretty shameful.

Shameful, maybe, and actually a worse record than many other major museums, but pretty much to be expected. From the National Museum of Women in the Arts post, "Where Are the Women?":

• Work by women artists makes up only 3–5% of major permanent collections in the U.S. and Europe, and 34% in Australian state museums.

• Of 590 major exhibitions by nearly 70 institutions in the U.S. from 2007–2013, only 27% were devoted to women artists. 

• Only 30% of artists represented by commercial galleries are women. In Australia, it’s about 40%; in Germany, less than 20%. 

• The good news is that, while in 2005, women ran 32% of the museums in the United States, they now run 47.6%—albeit mainly the ones with the smallest budgets. 

• Women still lag behind men in directorships held at museums with budgets over $15 million, holding 30% of art museum director positions and earning 75¢ for every dollar earned by male directors. 

• The top three museums in the world, the British Museum (est. 1753), the Louvre (est. 1793), and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (est. 1870) have never had female directors.

Update, 27 August 2018: Writing for BBC Culture, Holly Williams discusses a new play about Artemisia, focusing on her rape trial (and using original trial transcripts, when possible), created and performed by Breach, an experimental theater company. The play, It’s True It’s True It’s True, directed by Breach co-founder Billy Barrett, debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, at the Underbelly, Cowgate, venue and will be at New Diorama in London from 16 October to 10 November 2018. For an extended review in The Guardian, click here.

Update, 19 September 2019: It's not really news, but it's an "update" in the sense of nothing has changed . . . The title of Julia Jacobs's piece in the New York Times says it all: "Female Artists Made Little Progress in Museums Since 2008, Survey Find" (click here). 

Contrary to the sense in the art world that "gender equity was on the horizon," progress was more a "perception of change" than "reality." 

A little data from the piece: "between 2008 and 2018, only 11 percent of art acquired by the country’s top museums for their permanent collections was by women." And "Over the past decade, just 29,247 works by female artists were acquired by 26 top museums in the United States, out of 260,470 total works."

Update, 30 November 2019: Here I am again, writing the same old thing. In her New York Times story, "Museum Showcases a Neglected Segment of the Art World: Women," Aimee Ortiz details a new initiative of the Baltimore Museum of Art. In 2020 Vision, the museum announced plans for "a year of exhibitions and programs dedicated to presentation of the achievements of female-identifying artists. The initiative will encompass 13 solo exhibitions and seven thematic shows beginning in fall 2019, with additional presentations still being planned."

In covering the Baltimore Museum of Art announcement, Ortiz cites figures from a recent study published by PLOS One, "Diversity of Artists in Major U.S. Museums." The study "surveyed the public online catalogs of 18 major U.S. museums," examining some "10,000 artist records" relative to "over 9,000 unique artists." Their results show that 87% of the artists represented at these institutions are men. To put it another way, only 12.6% of the "identifiable artists" in those 18 major museums are women.

Update, 30 January 2022: Turns out, given the global COVID pandemic, the Baltimore Museum of Art's "vision" had to be "deferred" (here). The museum did issue a statement in December 2020 announcing its acquisitions, "made as part of its 2020 Vision initiative, which includes a commitment to only purchase works by female-identifying artists this calendar year" (here).

Update, 1 July 2022: The National Library's A-Z list now includes 2 portraits by Paula Reggo and 13 by Maggi Hambling.

Update, 25 September 2023: A rediscovered "lost" Artemisia! Once owned by Charles I of England, One of Artemisia's Susannah and the Elders paintings has been identified, restored, and is now on display. Seems it was just stuffed into an old corner of a storeroom at Hampton Court . . . 

Artemesia Gentileschi: "The Magnificent Exception"

Artemisia Gentileschi (born 8 July 1593)

The subtitle for today's post, "The Magnificent Exception," is the title of a chapter on the painter Artemisia Gentileschi in Germaine Greer's The Obstacle Race: The Fortune of Women Painters and Their Work. I can't begin to express the excitement I felt on encountering the work of this renowned Baroque painter when I first read Greer's 1979 discussion, which is accompanied by 10 black-and-white illustrations but only one color plate. 

Self-portrait, c. 1609-12

Then there was Mary Gerrard's stunning 1989 Artemisia Gentileschi, a book that weighs in at nearly five pounds--607 pages, 24 color plates, 327 black-and-white illustrations. 

And I just about lost it in 2003, wandering through the Uffizi, when I turned a corner and found myself face to face, for the first time, with a Gentileschi painting that wasn't a color plate in a book--the painting was large, one of several versions of Judith Slaying Holofernes. (This painting, along with her Saint Catherine, was among those badly damaged in the 1993 car bombing of the Uffizi, but both have been restored.)

Artemisia Gentileschi was born in Rome, the daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, himself a noted painter, and Prudentia Montone, about whom very little is said, except for the fact that she died when Artemisia was about twelve. In assessing Artemisia and her work, Greer writes, "Great genius is the exception that makes the rule. It is always and everywhere gratuitous; the wonder is not that genius does not appear on earth more often but that it ever appears on earth at all": 

For the woman of today, Artemisia represents the female equivalent to the Old Master. She is the exception to all the rules: she rejected a conventional feminine rôle for a revolutionary female one. The price she paid was enormous: we shall never know how much of her potential was expended in fruitless friction, truculently defending her independence, exacting respect from patrons who condescended doubly to a woman dependent upon their support. 

As Greer makes clear, while Gentileschi might be an "exception to all the rules," even a "magnificent exception," her road was not easy. She was a successful, internationally known artist, but she paid a heavy price. 

Her life story has been sensationalized in film, novels, a graphic novel, and even a play that imagines Artemisia Gentileschi and Hildegard of Bingen in an "exorcism," talking about their lives and work "on an explosive arts panel about survival strategies for women artists." She is also present at Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party--her place setting is one of those prepared for thirty-nine women represent at the table.

Self-portrait, c. 1630

Maybe "sensationalized" is the wrong word to use here, because there was a well-documented rape trial. If you are interested in the lives of women in the past, as I am, the charges brought by Artemisia's father against the painter Agostino Tassi, whom he had hired to tutor his daughter, are not insignificant, and it's easy enough to find the details online. But Artemisia Gentileschi is more than this single event, as traumatic as this assault was. 

From 1614 to 1620, Artemisia Gentileschi worked in Florence, the first woman accepted into the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno (Academy of the Arts of Drawing). After a brief return to Rome, she was on to Genoa, then back in Rome (1620s), then on to Venice (c. 1627-30), to Naples (1630s), and eventually on to England (1638 to c. 1642).

After the Civil War broke out in England, she could be found again in Naples, where she seems to have died, perhaps in 1652 but maybe as late as 1656. These were not the wanderings of a woman who could not find work--every where she went, she found patrons, commissions, and opportunities.

Susanna and the Elders, 1610

But such a listing of where she worked is a mere itinerary, however. The works speak for themselves. Most memorable, at least for me, are her paintings featuring female subjects, like her 1610 Susanna and the Elders.

The most widely recognized of her paintings are her variations on the topic of Judith slaying Holofernes. They are mesmerizing--graphic, bloody, powerful, memorable. One of these Judiths is what stopped me dead in my tracks at the Uffizi in 2003. After hours spent in the galleries, where all the great artworks had begun to blur together and send me into system overload, experiencing that painting was a singular and memorable moment. (My son gave me three magnificent reproductions of Artemisia's Judith paintings last Christmas--they are hanging above my desk as I write this post!)

There are many excellent books on Artemisia Gentileschi and her work, more recent than the Greer and Garrard works I've noted above. But I'll link you here to a wonderful biography and online gallery from The Art History Archive. After that, you won't have any trouble finding more.

(I don't usually link you to Wikipedia articles, since anyone can find them--but there's an extensive bibliography there, which is something the Art History Archive does not provide.) 

Also, just for fun, I pulled my massive college art history textbook off the shelf--H. W. Janson's History of Art, the 1968 "Twelfth Printing." Guess who's not there??? But, not only was there no Artemisia Gentileschi, there were  no women artists at all in that book, and not a single woman artist made her way into this standard art-history textbook until 1986, nearly twenty years later--when twenty-one women were included! Twenty years after that, only twenty-seven women artists were included. (Compared to 268 men.) And of the twenty-seven women artists, only nineteen were represented with images of their work. (But at least the 8th edition had one of Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith paintings was on the cover . . . Good, I guess?)

Update: The 9th edition of Janson's art-history classic still contains a whopping twenty-seven women artists!!! Out of 318 artists . . . ???!*

Judith Beheading Holofernes, c. 1612-13

*The fact sheet published by the National Museum of Women in the Arts is continuously updated, so I no longer see this information about Janson's history of art there. I've left in the link because the data published by the NMWA about women artists is so stark. Here is a link to Kenneth Best's "Setting the Record Straight," published by the University of Connecticut, which contains the original citation about representation of women artists in the 9th edition of Janson's History. 

Update, December 2018: The National Gallery (London) is planning for a magnificent exhibition of Artemisia, scheduled for Spring/Summer (April - July) of 2020! (The gallery recently purchased a newly identified self-portrait by Gentileschi.)

Update, 16 March 2020: Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the National Gallery has postponed the opening of its Artemisia exhibition--the gallery insists the exhibition has not been canceled, merely delayed until conditions change. Here's a link to the National Gallery page for the exhibition: click here. You can still see images and information about the exhibition at the website.

In the mean time, you may want to listen to this episode of BBC's The Forum, broadcast 26 March  2020: "Artemisia: The Painter Who Took on the Men." In addition to Mary Garrard, the panel includes Letizia Treves, curator of the 2020 Artemisia exhibition at the National Gallery.

One curious detail: During the broadcast, Jesse Locker notes that Artemisia may have died during the plague that hit Naples in 1656 (when she died isn't clear--the last document from her that survives is a contract from 1654). As I listen during a global pandemic,  I couldn't help but gasp--the coincidence, if Artemisia died in a time of plague, is unbearable.

Update, 25 September 2023: A rediscovered "lost" Artemisia! Once owned by Charles I of England, One of Artemisia's Susannah and the Elders paintings has been identified, restored, and is now on display. Seems it was just stuffed into an old corner of a storeroom at Hampton Court . . . 

Update, 23 February 2026: A newly acquired painting by Artemisia Gentileschi will go on exhibition at the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.). For Katy Hessel's reflections on Gentileschi's Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy, "Neither Saint Nor Sinner, Artemisia Gentileschi's Mary Magdalene Is Electrifyingly Alive" (in The Guardian), click here. 

Judy Chicago's Opening Night

Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party (opening night, 14 March 1979)

The Dinner Party,
place settings for Mary Wollstonecraft and Sojourner Truth

One of the most amazing and controversial second-wave feminist works is Judy Chicago's monumental, multi-media art installation, The Dinner Party.

In an effort to reclaim women's history--and to provide a counternarrative to canonical art memorializing the New Testament story of the Last Supper--Chicago decided to use the idea of a banquet to create her symbolic history of women.

Instead of women's usual roles on such formal occasions, preparing the meal, serving it, and then cleaning up the mess, Chicago conceived of an oversize banquet table with place settings for thirty-nine women. Their individual place settings, each one of which includes a unique and elaborate needlework runner, a sculptural dinner plate, utensils, and a goblet, are arranged on three sides of a triangular table, each side of which is forty-eight feet long. This table is set on top of what Chicago calls a "heritage floor," 999 porcelain tiles, each one inscribed with the name of another notable woman.

The place settings are arranged chronologically, each side called a wing. The first wing begins with the primordial goddess and ends with Hypatia of Alexandria. The second begins with Marcella of Rome and extends to Anna van Schurman. The first place setting on the third wing is for Anne Hutchinson, the last for Georgia O'Keefe.

Almost lost for want of a home, The Dinner Party is now permanently displayed at the Virginia A Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum. The Museum hosts an incredible gallery for online viewing. Included is a history of the art work, a virtual tour of the piece, from entry banners, detailed looks at each of the place settings, a description and viewing of the Heritage Floor and seven Heritage Panels. 

If you can't go to Brooklyn, at the very least take the online tour today!

The banquet table, The Dinner Party

Update, 7 February 2018: For Sasha Weiss's extended retrospective on Judy Chicago's life and work, "Judy Chicago: The Godmother," published today in the New York Times Style Magazine, click here.

Update, December 2018: On a happy note, Judy Chicago is one of this year's Time Magazine "100 Most Influential People," with a brief essay by Jill Soloway, which you can access by clicking here.

And on a not-so-happy note, there are still people--particularly those self-identifying as Christian evangelicals, evidently--who find something to fear in the work of Judy Chicago. Although Chicago has made her home in Belen, New Mexico, for the last twenty-six years, living and working in the town of 7,000 (as well as establishing her arts organization, Through the Flower, there, hosting small exhibitions featuring the work female artists in New Mexico), some fearful town residents have objected to the idea of a proposed Judy Chicago museum there: "As Christians, we are for order, justice, security and protection,” in the words of just one such critic. “I’m for protecting the eyes of the innocent, especially the children.” Sigh. To read Simon Romero's "A Museum Honoring Judy Chicago, Star of Feminist Art? Not in This ‘Sleepy Little Town" (New York Times, 15 December 2018, click here.

Update, 19 September 2019: An interview with Judy Chicago, who has two current exhibitions (one in Los Angeles and one in Washington D.C.--the headline in the New York Times says it all: "Judy Chicago on Rescuing Women from Art History's Sidelines" (click here).

Update, 7 July 2021: The Fine Arts Institute of San Francisco has announced a new exhibition, "Judy Chicago: A Retrospective" (click here), "the first retrospective of her work" (28 August 2021-9 January 2022). Click here for an online view.

Update, 5 October 2021: Wow!!!! Here’s another “dinner party” I knew nothing about, Vanessa Bell and  Duncan Grant’s 1932 Famous Women Dinner Service! Check out the article in The Guardian noting a new exhibition by clicking here. On the art itself, the location of which was unknown for years, click here