Artemisia

The panel depicts a heroine of antiquity, Artemisia, who lived in Anatolia in the 4th century b.C. According to Valerius Maximus and Aulius Gellius, she had married her brother Mausolus, satrap of Caria, and after his death she dedicated her life to celebrating his memory, having a monumental tomb erected in his honour. It was the famous Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (the modern Bodrum, Turkey), one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Besides, following the legend, she drank Mausolus’s ashes, in order to become his living tomb.
The elegant figure of Artemisia dominates the scene, and the painting’s refinement is evident in the movement of her transparent veil and in the grace of her hand holding the cup. In the background, on the right, Artemisia is about to drink her husband’s ashes mixed with her tears; on the left, she oversees the construction of the Mausoleum.
Set in a sumptuous nineteenth-century neo-Gothic style frame, the panel was part of a series of paintings, of similar size and composition, depicting women and men of antiquity celebrated for their virtues. There are eight panels in all, four with female figures and four with male ones. Possibly the cycle was originally intended to decorate a room in a private residence, and it was made on the occasion of a wedding, as some paintings, like this one, celebrate conjugal love and fidelity.
The work, datable between 1490 and 1500, is attributed the Master of Griselda, a refined and still anonymous painter active in Siena in the late 15th century.