Elisabetta Sirani was a female Baroque painter. She specialised in strong and heroic women of history. Objectively, her works had been overshadowed and overlooked by her male contemporaries. Owing to her status as a female painter, she radically gave her female subjects agency in opposition to the contemporary stigmas. Even to this day, it is still controversial in the eyes of patriarchy when women take responsibility for punishment of their abusers and rapists.
As the story goes, a Thracian captain of Alexander the great, rapes Timoclea as part of his war spoils. In order to take revenge, she claims that the captain is now her guardian, lord and husband and thus she will give up all her wealth and valuables to him. However, the catch was that her valuables were in a well. As he takes the bait, Timoclea pushes her abuser down the well and drops heavy stones on him to finish the job.
In the painting, the Captain is upside down, flailing and tumbling into the stone well whereas Timoclea is holding his legs firmly with a resolute expression on her face. Even though the man is muscular and fit, she is able to push him. The representations clearly show Timoclea in control whereas the contrasting light and shadow work create a dramatic environment. In general, this story had been made a minor chapter by male writers but Sirani, through her painting made Timoclea the main character.
Timoclea Kills the Captain of Alexander the Great is an oil painting by Elisabetta Sirani, painted in 1659. It depicts a scene from Life of Alexander, a bibliography of Alexander the Great by Plutarch. In Timoclea’s story, her city was pillaged by Thracian forces, and she was raped by an enemy captain. When the captain asked for money afterwards, Timoclea tricked him into falling into a well, after which she killed him by throwing heavy stones down the hole. This painting depicts the moment where Timoclea enacts her revenge on the captain as she pushes him down, using vivid colours and dynamic poses to capture the intensity of the moment. Timoclea is portrayed with a determined and serious expression, showing her resolution and astuteness.
