India, Aug. 30 -- She was producing commissioned work by the age of 15. Some of it was likened to the works of Caravaggio. Commissions poured in from across Europe. Artemisia Gentileschi was the first woman member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence. One of the first successful women artists in Western history. Before much of this, at 17, she was raped by Agostino Tassi, a friend her father hired as a tutor. Historical records indicate that her father, the prominent artist Orazio Gentileschi, then insisted on taking the case to court, forcing her to endure a seven-month trial. After it was done (Tassi was found guilty and sentenced to five years of exile, but the sentence was later annulled), Gentileschi moved to Florence, where she built her reputation as an artist. She became known for exquisite depictions of light and shadow, and of powerful female characters, often shown wreaking vengeance. Perhaps her best-known work is an instantly recognisable Judith Beheading Holofernes (a scene from the Bible; see image 5). We know the work and yet most of us still don't know her name. She delivers a Judith unlike any other, says art historian Letizia Treves, who curated a Gentileschi exhibit at the National Gallery, London, five years ago. "She spares us none of the horror and the violence," she told CBC, Canada. "There's truthfulness here. you can sense the sheer strength of brute force needed to carry out this really gory task." Gentileschi was born in Rome, lived and worked in Florence, Naples, Venice and London, earning commissions from the Medici family, and the royal courts of England and Spain. Gentileschi died, possibly of the plague, in 1656. The record on her legacy is still being corrected. One painting from her time in London, Susanna and the Elders, was recently found in Britain's Royal Collection Trust (RCT), mistakenly attributed to a male artist....