Art, new painting by Artemisia Gentileschi discovered: it will be auctioned in Vienna

A recently rediscovered work by Artemisia Gentileschi (Rome 1597 – Naples 1652), painted with her studio assistant Onofrio Palumbo, will be auctioned by the Dorotheum house in Vienna on May 3 with a starting estimate of 200,000 euros. The last time the painting, titled Abraham and the Three Angels, hit the market, it was presented as a painting by Bernardo Cavallino, sold by the Artemisia gallery in Paris in 2014. Cavallino is a big name in its own right and was sold for 3.9 million dollars at Sotheby’s in New York last January.

It was the art historian Giuseppe Porzio who first proposed the new attribution, pointing out stylistic similarities to other known works by Artemisia Gentileschi, as well as a written record of a payment to the artist in 1645 for a large painting depicting Abraham, which is otherwise unknown. Close examination of the painting suggests the hand of not one but two artists, indicating that it is a collaboration with Palumbo, one of her noted studio assistants.

“He’s probably responsible for one of the angels and some of the background,” Dorotheum specialist Mark MacDonnell told Artnet News. «This type of two-handed composition, made by two artists, was a common practice. We tend to attribute paintings to individual artists, but often they worked with collaborators.” Artemisia Gentileschi’s record was set at 4.8 million euros by the art house Artcurial in Paris in 2019. In the same Dorotheum auction on May 3 dedicated to the «Old Master Paintings» a quartet of historical Italian painters will be offered : in addition to Artemisia Gentileschi, works by Fede Galizia, Orsola Maddalena Caccia and Diana De Rosa will be offered.