# The Painting She Did Not Sign > Artemisia Gentileschi signed nineteen of about forty-eight surviving paintings by one count, and an earlier catalogue counts seventeen signed works in fourteen spellings. The one in this archive is not signed, and the only inscription on it is a stock number on a lining canvas. > The Study - 2026-09-26 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/the-painting-she-did-not-sign/ ## Key points - Judith Mann's study of her signatures states that Artemisia signed nineteen of her approximately forty-eight extant paintings, and argues she used her name to further her reputation and her prospects for commissions. The 2001 Orazio and Artemisia catalogue counts seventeen signed autograph works carrying fourteen different variations of her name. - The picture in this archive is not one of them. The National Gallery's 2024 catalogue entry records a single inscription on the object, the number 715 on the reverse of its lining canvas, which is a stock number and not a name. - What identified it was a tracing. Letizia Treves states that the areas overlapped to the millimetre with the buried underdrawing of the Uffizi Saint Catherine, and Cecilia Frosinini of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure says Artemisia reused a cartoon or preparatory drawing with variations. - A false signature was painted over her real one on the Pozzuoli Saint Januarius. It was found only because the cathedral burned in May 1964 and the picture was cleaned afterwards. - Lomi was the real family name and Gentileschi the adopted one, taken by her father from an uncle. Her father signed a Prado picture HOR.S LOMI, and a Roman notary still recorded her as Lomi on 17 November 1621, so the story that she borrowed the name in Florence for its prestige is a simplification. - A Susanna she painted for Queen Henrietta Maria was hers in the 1639 royal inventory, became Gentileschi's daughter in 1659, lost her name entirely in a printed transcription of 1757, was reassigned to Benedetto Gennari II in 1862, sat in store as seventeenth-century French school until the late 2010s, and was returned to her in the Burlington Magazine in October 2023. ## The most inventive signer of her century did not sign this one ## The only inscription on the object is a stock number on a lining canvas ## It was identified by a tracing that fits another picture section by section ## Seventeen signed works, fourteen spellings of her own name ## Lomi was the real name, and the Florence story is too neat ## A false signature was painted over her real one, and a fire found it ## The picture that lost her name for three centuries ## What the absence of her name is actually worth ## Why this archive is free to read The market pays for a name on a surface, and this is the painter who proves how little that is worth. Somebody forged a signature over hers at Pozzuoli and a fire undid it; dirt hid the Burghley signature until 1995 and two of the field's best scholars still doubt it; a picture she made for a queen became Gentileschi's daughter in 1659 and seventeenth-century French school by the 2010s. The one in this archive has no name on it at all, and it is held to her on a cartoon that lies over another canvas to the millimetre, on a weave, on a pigment and on a published argument anybody can attack. That is a stronger thing to own than an autograph. ## Questions **Is the National Gallery's Artemisia Gentileschi self portrait signed?** No. The National Gallery's 2024 catalogue entry records only one inscription anywhere on the object, the number 715 written on the upper right of the reverse of a nineteenth or early twentieth-century lining canvas. That is a stock number, not a signature, and the attribution rests on technical examination and comparison instead. **How many of Artemisia Gentileschi's paintings are signed?** Judith Mann's 2009 study in Renaissance Studies states that she signed nineteen of her approximately forty-eight extant paintings. The 2001 Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi catalogue counts seventeen signed works believed to be autograph and notes that they carry fourteen different variations of her name, so the figure should be given as a range. **Why did Artemisia Gentileschi sign herself Lomi?** Lomi was her family's actual name. Her father Orazio took the name Gentileschi from an uncle he lived with, and signed at least one Prado painting HOR.S LOMI himself. Artemisia used Lomi in Florence and was still recorded as Lomi by a Roman notary on 17 November 1621, so the common account that she adopted the name only in Florence to borrow a relative's prestige is a simplification. **What did the National Gallery pay for it, and how was it funded?** The total cost of acquisition was 3.6 million pounds in 2018. The Gallery's own press release breaks that down as 3.7 million US dollars from the American Friends of the National Gallery, London, 380,000 pounds from the National Gallery Trust, 250,000 pounds from Art Fund through the legacy of Sir Denis Mahon including funding towards conservation, and 280,000 pounds from donations and gifts from wills, with two of those totals subject to confirmation of donor pledges. **Where was the painting sold before the National Gallery bought it?** It was sold at the Hotel Drouot in Paris on 19 December 2017, as lot 69, by the auctioneer Christophe Joron-Derem, having descended in the Boudeville family. It was catalogued under Artemisia Gentileschi's own name against an estimate of 300,000 to 400,000 euros, and was bought by the dealers Marco Voena and Fabrizio Moretti, from whom the Gallery purchased it in 2018. **Has a false signature ever been found on an Artemisia Gentileschi painting?** Yes. Her Saint Januarius in the Amphitheater was in Pozzuoli cathedral when it burned in May 1964, and when the painting was cleaned afterwards her real signature was revealed under a later, spurious one. ## Sources - [1] National Gallery, London, 2024 scholarly catalogue entry for Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria, NG6671, by Letizia Treves with technical contributions by Larry Keith and Marta Melchiorre, for the provenance through the Boudeville family and the Drouot sale of 19 December 2017 lot 69 to Marco Voena and Fabrizio Moretti, the single recorded inscription 715 on the lining canvas, the loss of the tacking edges and the strip of primed canvas added at relining, the painted-out shape read as a book or prophetic tablet, the revised drapery, the late pearl-topped crown, the suggestion that the picture may have begun as another subject such as a sibyl, the X-radiograph of the Uffizi picture, inventory 8032, showing an almost identical turbaned figure and a third smaller head, and the Gallery's own dating of that canvas to about 1615 to 1617, and the inverted female head under the Hartford Lute Player. - [2] National Gallery, London, collection page for Self Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria, for the published dimensions of 71.4 by 69 cm, against the 71 by 71 cm given in the 2017 sale catalogue. - [3] Christophe Joron-Derem, Hotel Drouot, Paris, sale of 19 December 2017, lot 69, Artemisia Gentileschi, Sainte Catherine d'Alexandrie, oil on canvas, 71 by 71 cm, with old restorations and small tears noted, estimate 300,000 to 400,000 euros, and a result of 2,360,600 euros. The house prints that figure under a heading reading Resultats sans frais, results without fees, but it is in fact premium-inclusive: the terms on the same page give a buyer's premium of 23 per cent before tax and 27.6 per cent with tax, and 1,850,000 euros plus 27.6 per cent is 2,360,600 exactly. So the hammer is 1.85 million euros, the figure this archive already carries, and 2,360,600 euros is the premium-inclusive result. - [4] Cabinet Turquin, expert to the sale, on the discovery of the picture by Maitre Joron-Derem and its being wholly unpublished before the sale of 19 December 2017 at the Hotel Drouot. - [5] Judith W. Mann, "Identity signs: meanings and methods in Artemisia Gentileschi's signatures", Renaissance Studies 23, no. 1 (2009), pp. 71 to 107, for the count of nineteen signatures among approximately forty-eight extant paintings and for the argument that she exploited her name to further her reputation and her prospects for commissions. Quoted from the publisher-deposited abstract record, the journal's own page being bot-walled; the full article was not read. - [6] Keith Christiansen and Judith W. Mann, Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Palazzo Venezia and Saint Louis Art Museum, 2001, read as the full OCR text of the catalogue, for the statement that there is no consistency in her signatures and that seventeen signed autograph works carry fourteen variations, for the transcribed signature lines, for Orazio's adopted name and the Lomi family name and the Roman notary of 17 November 1621, for the spurious signature over her own on the Pozzuoli Saint Januarius revealed after the fire of May 1964, for the Burghley Susanna signature revealed in 1995 and doubted by Bissell and Garrard against the Indianapolis analysis, for Borea's attribution of the El Escorial picture to Caroselli, for the doubts over the Pommersfelden signature before Bissell published the 1593 baptism in 1968, for the Saint Louis Danae sold as Orazio at Sotheby's Monaco on 22 February 1986, and for the Cleopatra printed twice under both painters by the two editors. OCR of a printed catalogue, so transcriptions were checked against a museum record where possible. - [7] Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, record for Jael and Sisera, inventory 75.11, giving the signature on the central pilaster as ARTEMITIA. LOMI FACIBAT M.D.CXX, which corroborates the 2001 catalogue's lettering. - [8] "X-ray of Uffizi's Artemisia Gentileschi reveals a tantalising underpainting", The Art Newspaper, 11 April 2019, for the turbaned underpainting facing the observer as in the National Gallery picture, for Cecilia Frosinini of the Opificio delle Pietre Dure on a reused cartoon or preparatory drawing, for Letizia Treves on the areas overlapping to the millimetre, for the mysterious little face beside Saint Catherine's own, and for the Uffizi dating of 1618 to 1620 against the National Gallery's about 1615 to 1617. - [9] Niko Munz and Adelaide Izat, "Artemisia Gentileschi's Susanna and the elders painted for Henrietta Maria", The Burlington Magazine 165, no. 1447, October 2023, pp. 1053 to 1073, accepted manuscript deposited in Oxford University Research Archive, for the chain of attribution from van der Doort's 1639 inventory through the Commonwealth sale of 1651, Ralph Bankes's list of 1659, Queen Anne's inventory of about 1704 to 1710, Vertue's printed transcription of 1757, Redgrave's reassignment to Benedetto Gennari II in 1862 and the rediscovery in store in the late 2010s, for the suggestion that the absence of a signature hastened the loss of attribution, for the observation that the Royal Collection self portrait has kept her name partly because its signature is visible, and for the authors' argued rule that Gentileschi without a first name implies Orazio in the Charles I sale catalogue. - [10] National Gallery, London, press release of July 2018 announcing the acquisition, for the total cost of 3.6 million pounds and the published funding breakdown from the American Friends of the National Gallery London, the National Gallery Trust, Art Fund through the legacy of Sir Denis Mahon, and donations and gifts from wills. - [11] Saint Louis Art Museum, collection record for Danae, object number 93:1986, giving the artist as Artemisia Gentileschi and the date about 1612, with no attribution history recorded on the page.