Medea

Artemisia Gentileschi painted Medea around 1620, depicting the mythological sorceress from Colchis whose violent acts — killing her own children to revenge herself on Jason's abandonment — made her one of the most dramatically charged figures in the entire classical tradition. Medea was an unusual subject in Italian painting of this period, and Artemisia's choice of it reflects both her sustained interest in female figures of extreme action and her willingness to engage with mythological subjects alongside her more frequent biblical ones. The work demonstrates her ability to project female agency — even of the most morally ambiguous kind — with the same formal authority she brought to her heroic sacred subjects.

The figure of Medea is rendered with dramatic Caravaggesque lighting, the sorceress's determined expression and the dark setting creating an atmosphere of fateful resolve.