Susan Joyce Vreeland was an American author. Several of her books deal with the relationship between art and fiction. The Passion of Artemisia is a fictionalized investigation of some aspects of the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, while Girl in Hyacinth Blue centers round an imaginary painting by Vermeer.

Artemesia Gentileschi was the Renaissance’s most famous woman artist. Raped by her father’s artistic colleague she was tortured when she attempted to denounce him. Later her father betrayed her, as did the husband to whom he had given her in a marriage of convenience. The book opens with the court scene in which Artemesia is being tried by The Sibille, “an instrument designed to bring truth to women’s lips.” Cords are tightened around her fingers when she does not give ‘appropriate’ answers to the authorities, scaring her painter’s hands and branding her forever with the marks of patriarchy.