ITALIAN SCHOOL (18TH CENTURY) Judith with the Head...

ITALIAN SCHOOL (18TH CENTURY)
Judith with the Head of Holofernes
Oil on canvas, 39 x 60cm

Judith beheading Holofernes is the subject of many paintings and sculptures from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Holofernes was an Assyrian general who was about to destroy Judith's home, the biblical city of Bethulia. In the story, Judith, a beautiful widow, is able to enter the tent of Holofernes because of his desire for her. Overcome with drink, he passes out and is decapitated by Judith.

In keeping with the European tradition in representing the scene, Judith, in the present work, is assisted by a maid in placing the severed head in a sack while the decapitated body of Holofernes is left in the bed. The scene takes place just outside Bethulia whose city walls and towers are illuminated by moonlight. Just below is the tent encampment housing Holofernes army, oblivious through drink to the fate of their leader. Judith’s femininity is contradictorily combined with her masculine aggression but in the act of placing the head in the sack she appears to turn her head away in revulsion. She is attractively attired, representing more the ‘seducer-assassin’ of the late Renaissance period as opposed to the chaste ‘Virtue’ of earlier representations.