Giovanna Garzoni

• Giovanna Garzoni (Italian, 1600–1670)
• Tempera on vellum
• Late 1640s
• The J. Paul Getty Museum (Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program)

The Artist

Giovanna Garzoni (1600–1670) was one of the first women artists to work in the still life genre. Today, she is best known for her delicate watercolor paintings of plants, vegetables, and animals. But she also painted religious, mythological, and allegorical subjects, as well as portraits. Much of her work is on paper, but she also created works with other materials, including cloth and stone.

Often accompanied by her brother, she traveled and worked all over present-day Italy—including Venice, Naples Turin, Florence, and Rome—and in England and Paris. In the 1640s, she traveled back and forth from Rome to Florence, where her primary clients were in the Medici family. In the early 1650s, she settled in Rome, though she continued to produce art for the Medicis. The biographer Lione Pascoli, in his Vite (1730–1736), stated that she could command for her art “any price that she asked.”

Learn more about Garzoni’s painting Still Life with Bowl of Citrons: The J. Paul Getty Museum.

Upcoming/recent exhibitions featuring Giovanna Garzoni:

𝚆̶𝚘̶𝚖̶𝚊̶𝚗̶ Painter; Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, October 8, 2026–February 7, 2027. 

Donne nella Napoli spagnola: Un altro Seicento at Gallerie d’Italia–Napoli, November 20, 2025–March 22, 2026.

Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400–1800 at the Art Gallery of Ontario from March 30–July 1, 2024. The show was on previously (October 1, 2023–January 7, 2024) at the Baltimore Museum of Art. 

Maestras: Women Artists at Arp Museum from February 25–June 16, 2024. The exhibition was previously hosted (October 31, 2023–February 4, 2024) at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.

By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500–1800 at the Wadsworth Atheneum, September 30, 2021–January 9, 2022, and the Detroit Institute of Arts, February 6–May 29, 2022.

Le Signore dell’Arte. Storie di donne tra ’500 e ’600 at Milan’s Palazzo Reale, March 2–August 22, 2021.

 ‘The Greatness of the Universe’ in the Art of Giovanna Garzoni at the Uffizi, originally scheduled to open in March 2020, delayed due to Covid-10; but it did run—to much acclaim—from late May to late June 2020.

The Art Herstory blog:

Giovanna Garzoni’s Portrait of Zaga Christ (Ṣägga Krǝstos), by Alexandra Letvin

“La grandezza del universo” nell’arte di Giovanna Garzoni / “The grandeur of the universe” in the art of Giovanna Garzoni, by Sara Matthews-Grieco

Two of a Kind: Giovanna Garzoni & Artemisia Gentileschi, by Mary D. Garrard 

The Protofeminist Insects of Giovanna Garzoni and Maria Sibylla Merian, by Emma Steinkraus

The J. Paul Getty Museum: Explore > 

Hyperallergic: Explore >  

Apollo Magazine: Explore >