Artemisia Gentileschi

Possibly painted in England for King Charles I (1600–1649), late 1630s, where it remained until the late eighteenth century;

With Herman Shickman, New York;

By whom offered, London, Sotheby’s, 9 July 1975, lot 45 (as Giovanni Francesco Guerrieri), unsold;

Munich, Hampel Fine Art Auctions, 6 December 2018, lot 598 (initially as 17^th-century painter of the school of Caravaggio, its attribution amended online prior to the sale to Gentileschi), for 104,000 euros;

Where acquired by the present owner.

Possibly M. Pilkington, The Gentleman’s and Connoisseur’s Dictionary of Painters…, London 1798, p. 256;

Possibly H. Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England with Some Account of the Principal Artists…, London 1826–28, vol. II, 1826, p. 269;

G. Papi, ‘Un “Davide e Golia” di Artemisia Gentileschi’, in Nuovi Studi, 1, 1996, pp. 157–60, reproduced fig. 273 (as Artemisia Gentileschi);

R. Ward Bissell, Artemisia Gentileschi and the Authority of Art, University Park, Pennsylvania 1999, pp. 313–14, no. X-8 (as Roman circle of Vouet, about 1620);

R. Contini, ‘Ritagli giustinianei’, in Caravaggio e i Giustiniani. Toccar con mano una collezione del Seicento, S. Danesi Squarzina (ed.), exh. cat., Rome and Berlin 2001, p. 66 (as perhaps the painting recorded in the Giustiniani inventory);

F. Solinas, in Artemisia: la musa Clio e gli anni napoletani, R. Contini and F. Solinas (eds), exh. cat., Palazzo Blu, Pisa 2013, p. 48, under no. 4 (as an autograph repetition of the painting seen in Naples by Joachim von Sandrart; ‘la meno vibrante e più ferma derivazione’ [‘the less vibrant and more still derivation’]);

R. Lattuada, in Artemisia Gentileschi in a Changing Light, S. Barker (ed.), Turnhout 2017, pp. 193 and 213–14 n. 6 (as a version with variants, citing Papi 1996 and Bissell 1999; ‘it is hard to judge the attribution on the basis of the old black and white photo’);

G. Papi, with T.D. Chaplin and S. Gillespie, ‘A ‘David and Goliath’ by Artemisia Gentileschi rediscovered’, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 162, no. 1404, March 2020, pp. 188–95, reproduced pp. 189, 191, 193, 194 and 195, figs 1, 5, 9–16 and 21–23 (as Artemisia Gentileschi, late 1630s);

L. Treves, in Artemisia, exh. cat., London 2020, p. 233 n. 32 (pointing out Bissell's error in calling it a copy);  

S. Barker, Artemisia Gentileschi, Getty Publications, 2022, pp. 101 and 133 n. 21, reproduced in colour p. 104, fig. 60 (as Artemisia Gentileschi, c. 1639);

M.C. Terzaghi, in Artemisia, Héroïne de l'art, P. Cavazzini, M.C. Terzaghi and P. Curie (eds), exh. cat., Paris 2025, under no. 14, p. 189 n. 63 (as another full-length version of David and Goliath).