On June 22, 1616, Artemisia Gentileschi completed Judith Slaying Holofernes — the second and more powerful version of a subject she had painted before, depicting a woman decapitating a general with unsettling precision and force.

Gentileschi was one of the first women to achieve recognition in the male-dominated world of Italian Baroque painting. She had studied under her father, Orazio Gentileschi, himself a major painter. For centuries after her death, her unsigned works were attributed to him.

She had been raped by her art tutor, Agostino Tassi, in 1612. Her father sued. The trial required her to be tortured — "tested" with thumbscrews — to verify her testimony. Tassi was convicted and sentenced to exile; the sentence was not enforced.

She continued painting. Her output was prodigious: biblical subjects, mythological scenes, portraits. She worked across Italy and in London, where she joined her father at the court of Charles I.

For two centuries after her death, her paintings were catalogued under her father's name or as "unknown." The 20th century began attributing them correctly. Her reputation has been restored substantially since the 1970s.

The Judith that hangs in the Uffizi Gallery is now firmly attributed to her. It was not always.