Artemisia Gentileschi. Annunciazione
The Annunciation by Artemisia Gentileschi (Rome, 1593 – Naples, after 31 January 1654), from the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples, is the Capolavoro per Milano 2026.
The painting, in the exhibition curated by Mario Epifani and Nadia Righi, is one of the most significant testimonies to Artemisia’s full artistic maturity, in which the painter was able to synthesise the various influences she had absorbed during her stays in Rome, Florence, Venice and, finally, Naples.
An extraordinary figure in the panorama of seventeenth-century painting, Artemisia succeeded in winning fame, prestige and wide recognition in an environment dominated almost exclusively by men, thanks to her exceptional talent.
Dated 1630 on the scroll in the lower right and executed in oil on canvas, the Annunciation is the first known work produced by the painter in Naples, a city she reached around 1629 after leaving Venice. The painting’s original destination remains uncertain, although its format and dimensions (257 × 179 cm) might suggest an altarpiece. It cannot be ruled out, however, that the canvas adorned a private chapel. It entered the collections of the then Real Museo Borbonico in 1815.
Thanks to a careful orchestration of light, the two monumental protagonists emerge powerfully from the dark, Caravaggesque background, pierced by the supernatural light surrounding the dove of the Holy Spirit, which seems to break through the clouds towards the Virgin. Gesture, colour and effects of light create an impression of intense emotional concentration.
