Artemisia Gentileschi has long suffered from unthinkable neglect. Only in more recent times has she begun to be appreciated as amazing artist and to gain some scholarly recognition (but no where near what she deserves.)
In large part she has been ignored because she is a woman. It was long believed that women could not posses the "golden nugget" of genius. (All one has to do is look at her work to know that this is not true. But this has been the attitude right up until modern times, even Georgia O'Keeffe had to fight against it.)
What is known of Artemisia's life has been pieced together from scant surviving documents. (It is most surprising that all the testimony form the 1612 rape trail has survived to modern day.)
Piecing together her works has proved to be an even bigger headache than piecing together her life. Because of the scant archival documents it is impossible to document any painting from commission through to execution. Many paintings that are mentioned in surviving documents are either unidentified or lost. Also, many of her works have long been put into her father's (Orazio Gentileschi) oeuvre.