The blazing masterpiece that could change the royal family's image

A magnificent self-portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi, who refused to let rape destroy her, has never seemed more relevant. This 17th-century work should hang in the National Gallery – and the Windsors could make it happen

Stand By Me has finished echoing through St George’s Chapel, the radical sermon is forgotten and the royal family are back to looking up at flypasts and waving. Did it all mean anything?

I’ve got a simple, cheap and painless way for the monarchy to prove it is serious about all those nice new vibes. It is to give up a single painting from the Royal Collection. This painting has so much relevance to the modern world that it needs urgently to be placed in the National Gallery so it can provide inspiration, right old wrongs and shatter history’s glass ceiling.

Gentileschi transforms allegory into muscular reality. She is not a symbol of painting but a real woman who paints

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