All paintings with the exception of the first slide of David playing the harp for King Saul by Rembrandt, are by Gentileschi. If Artemisia had painted such a scene (which seemed necessary because of the lyrics), I of course, would have used hers.
Artemisia Gentileschi (July 8, 1593 – c. 1656) was an Italian Baroque painter, today considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation following that of Caravaggio. In an era when women painters were not easily accepted by the artistic community or patrons, she was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence.
She painted many pictures of strong and suffering women from myth and the Bible - victims, suicides, warriors - and made it her specialty to paint the Judith story. Her best-known work is Judith Slaying Holofermes (a well-known medieval and barogue subject in art), which "shows the decapitation of Holofernes, a scene of horrific struggle and blood-letting". That she was a woman painting in the seventeenth century and that she was raped and participated in prosecuting the rapist, long overshadowed her achievements as an artist. For many years she was regarded as a curiosity. Today she is regarded as one of the most progressive expressionist painters of her generation.
