A previously unknown painting by Diana de Rosa, a rare female voice in 17th-century Neapolitan art, has stunned the Old Masters market, achieving a record-breaking sale at Sotheby’s London on July 2. The dramatic rediscovery of Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist—unpublished and off the radar since the 1950s—hammered down for £317,500, quadrupling its high estimate and resetting the narrative around this long-overlooked artist.
Once dismissed to the footnotes of Neapolitan Baroque, Diana de Rosa—long referred to as Annella di Massimo—is being drawn back into the frame. Her rediscovered Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist, a taut composition steeped in chiaroscuro and quiet menace, sparked a spirited bidding war at Sotheby’s. With interest spanning continents, it was a bidder in the room who ultimately secured the work, outpacing determined competition, including a private collector from Asia.
“This is not only an exceptional work in its own right,” said Elisabeth Lobkowicz, Sotheby’s Old Masters specialist, “but one that demands a serious reassessment of De Rosa’s place in the Baroque canon.”
Born in Naples in 1602 into a family of painters, De Rosa received her early training in the studio of her stepfather, Filippo Vitale. She later entered the bustling workshop of Massimo Stanzione, Naples’ leading painter at the time. Stanzione became both mentor and advocate—so much so that, according to period accounts, he offered De Rosa maternity pay to keep her in the studio during her childbearing years. That detail alone speaks volumes about her standing in an otherwise male-dominated environment.
Long eclipsed by the towering presence of Artemisia Gentileschi, Diana de Rosa’s work occupies a different register—quieter, but no less incisive. Where Gentileschi might thunder, De Rosa murmurs with unnerving clarity. Her Salome doesn’t posture; she fixes us with a level gaze, caught in a moment of stillness that vibrates with control. There is no flourish, no excess—just an arresting balance of form and feeling, where elegance doubles as defiance.
According to Bernardo de Dominici, the 18th-century biographer whose account remains the primary historical source on De Rosa, the artist was frustrated by the domestic confinement of her commissions and sought public recognition, not simply as a painter but as a woman demonstrating that excellence in art was not a male preserve. De Dominici also tells the much-repeated story of her alleged murder by her husband, the painter Agostino Beltrano, a tale now widely dismissed by scholars as a product of Romantic embellishment. Her death in 1643, at the age of 41, is more likely to have been from illness.
Though her output remains difficult to pin down—around 28 works are currently attributed to her—interest in De Rosa’s painting has grown markedly over the past few years. Her previous auction high was €128,000, achieved in 2021 at Dorotheum for “Samson and Delilah.” That result has now been more than doubled. In 2023, another of her works, Saint Cecilia, also surfaced at Dorotheum, having long been catalogued under the anonymous label “Neapolitan Master, 17th century.”
Works have been slowly re-entering the public eye: the Museum of Fine Arts, for instance, acquired Saint Cecilia with an Angel in 2023, presented by Galleria Porcini at TEFAF Maastricht, after the gallerist spotted it misattributed in a provincial sale.
Scholars have begun to untangle De Rosa’s voice from that of her brother Pacecco de Rosa, to whom several paintings had been incorrectly credited. As attributions are revisited and interest in early modern women artists grows, De Rosa is poised for a critical and commercial reappraisal.
Notably, De Rosa’s Salome came under the hammer just ahead of another powerhouse rediscovery: Artemisia Gentileschi’s David with the Head of Goliath, which fetched £2 million in the same Sotheby’s sale. The juxtaposition of these two rediscovered women painters felt almost scripted—a generational conversation reignited between two artists who refused to remain in the margins.
Yet the market remains fickle. A presumed self-portrait by Clara Peeters, estimated to be worth between £1.2 million and £1.8 million, failed to sell. Meanwhile, the May single-owner Old Masters sale in New York underperformed expectations, reinforcing the sense that rediscoveries—particularly those by historically marginalised figures—are where the current energy lies.
As Elisabeth Lobkowicz put it, “This is what keeps the Old Masters market alive. The discovery of a powerful work by an artist like Diana de Rosa doesn’t just change the artist’s story—it reshapes our understanding of the period itself.”
With institutional interest increasing and market momentum building, De Rosa is no longer a footnote in Neapolitan painting. Her moment, long overdue, appears to have arrived.