A new exhibition in Los Angeles showcases a masterpiece of 17th-century Italian art that was only recently rediscovered because of the 2020 Beirut blast.
The Getty Museum will host the first public display of Artemisia Gentileschi’s Hercules and Omphale, which had hung in a private Beirut residence for a century before it was “riddled with shards of glass” in the port explosion five years ago, the Financial Times wrote.
The damage spurred a Lebanese art historian to confirm a hunch he had formed decades earlier and to press for its official attribution: “When I saw the devastation, I understood that there was an emergency,” he said.
“I was the only person with the suspicion that these paintings were by Artemisia.”
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