The Queen's Gallery at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, home to works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Claude (Gellée) and Van Dyck, will show canvases by Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the few women artists of her time to win renown

The Queen's Gallery at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, home to works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Claude (Gellée) and Van Dyck, will show canvases by Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the few women artists of her time to win renown. The Italian painter enjoyed the patronage of Charles I, who invited her to London to join her celebrated father Orazio Gentileschi, then in the service of Queen Henrietta Maria of France. Orazio was even to be buried in Her Majesty's chapel at Somerset House.

Artemisia was the first woman member of the Academy of Drawing in Florence, and is known as the creator of pictures in which women kill men. You will surely remember her Judith beheading Holofernes, and Jael driving a tent peg into the temple of the Canaanite commander Sisera.

For King Charles I Artemisia painted a self-portrait in the guise of the allegory of Painting. It can be seen in a photograph in today's The Daily Telegraph, and, most amusingly, Prince Charles stands before the painting, who, should he ever come to the throne, may well reign as Charles III.

Report a translation error

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free. So, here is the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

The Queen's Gallery at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, home to works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Claude (Gellée) and Van Dyck, will show canvases by Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the few women artists of her time to win renown

Read more

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s