Saint Cecilia

Artemisia Gentileschi painted Saint Cecilia around 1620, depicting the patron saint of music playing an instrument — traditionally the organ, here shown with a more intimate stringed instrument — in the absorption of musical creation or divine inspiration. Cecilia's legend, in which she heard heavenly music at her wedding and was converted, made her a natural subject for combining music-making with spiritual experience. Artemisia's treatment gives the saint a physical presence and concentrated focus characteristic of her mature work: the figure fully absorbed in her music, the sensory pleasure of sound rendered through the careful observation of the body engaged in artistic creation — a meditation, perhaps, on the nature of artistic inspiration itself.

The saint's absorbed expression and the richly rendered musical instrument are painted with Artemisia's bold Caravaggesque technique, the strong directional light modeling the figure with sculptural clarity.