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GENTILESCHI, Artemisia: St Cecilia Playing a Lute

🖼 St Cecilia Playing a Lute, c. 1616
Oil on canvas
108 × 79 cm
Rome, Italy

Soft candlelight illuminates a young woman absorbed in her lute, her fingers poised mid-melody in intimate devotion. Gentileschi captures the saint with unprecedented psychological depth, elevating musical patronage into spiritual transcendence and establishing her as a master of introspective religious portraiture.

The story of art
The story of art
E. H. Gombrich
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