Orazio Gentileschi,
'The Finding of Moses', 1630-33.
Madrid, Museo del Prado.

Orazio Gentileschi at the Court of Charles I

3 March - 23 May 1999
Sunley Room

Supported by The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation

The National Gallery, in conjunction with the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao, organised the first-ever exhibition of the work of the 17th-century Italian painter Orazio Gentileschi (1563 - 1639).

Gentileschi was born in Pisa but went to work in Rome where, in about 1600, he became a friend of Caravaggio. He was one of the first painters to adopt Caravaggio's naturalism and his dramatic contrasts of dark and light. Gentileschi's own works are marked by great elegance and richness of colour and he has been considered the most poetic of all Caravaggesque painters. His daughter Artemisia (1593 - 1652/3) was greatly influenced by his work and became one of the most famous painters of the 17th century.


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