Featuring the baroque drama an extraordinary storytelling ability of Italian painter, Artemisia Gentileschi(Italian, 1593-1653), Fierce Women builds off the heroine in one of her most important paintings, Judith and her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes, ca. 1623-1625, who saved her city from an attempted siege by the Assyrian army, through beheading its general. This extraordinary painting is on loan to the Nelson-Atkins Museum from the Detroit Institute of Arts. Artemisia Gentileschi - Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes

Tales of fierce women in myth and history, a select group of whom, including Judith, were called “female worthies,” were popular across Europe from the 1400s. Initially selected for their military prowess, their traits expanded during the baroque era to include intellectual and religious accomplishments. Visualized in prints, drawings, paintings and decorative arts, made by male and female artists alike, stories of female worthies promoted the idea of equal education and involvement of women in civic life as evidence of women’s intellectual and moral potential.