Cruel Work

Judith and Holofernes (c 1615-8) by the Italian painter Giovanni Francesco Guerrieri (1589-1655).

Freaky Composition

Judith with the Head of Holofernes by theItalian Mannerist painter Jacopo Coppi (1523-1591).

Seductive Judith

Judith by the Flemish manierist painter Jan Massys (c. 1509-1575). Even today she looks really seductive.

Proud Judith

A proud and elegant Judith (c.1595) by the Italian painter Agostino Carracci (1557-1602).

Cool Judith

Judith (c. 1630-35) by the Italian Baroque painter Massimo Stanzione (1586-1656). That's a really cool reduced painting nearly already Classicism.

Childish Heroine

Judith. A really perfect painting by the Italian Mannerist painter Alessandro di Cristofano di Lorenzo del Bronzino Allori (1535-1607). She is cool and elegant and not at all impressed or frightened.

Elegant Judith

Judith and Holofernes (1577/78) by the Italian Renaissance painter Tintoretto (1518–1594).

Bloody Work

Judith Beheading Holofernes (1598-99) by the Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610).

A Lady With Her Servant

Judith and the Head of Holofernes (1580) by the Italian Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese (1529-1588).

Judith has already cut off the head and is now packing it in some blankets. Interesting is that Judith here depicted as an elegant blond European noble woman, while her servant seems to be an African slave like it was fashionable in Renaissance Italy.

Vigorous Nude

Judith (c.1540) by the Flemish Renaissance painter Jan Sanders van Hemessen (1500–1556).

Here a completely nude Judith is raising self confident a heavy sword. She has a strong athletic body and is ready to cut of the head of the sleeping Holofernes. An impressive painting.

Weary Warrior

Judith with the Head of Holofernes (1726) by the Dutch Baroque painter Philip van Dijk (1683 –1753).

Van Dijk depicted here a pale exhausted Judith, who is leaning on her sword. She’s tired from making love to the enemy but also from her bloody work.

Femme Fatale

Judith and Holofernes (c.1927) by the German painter Franz von Stuck (1863-1928). Stuck painted here a self-confident strong woman who is ready to behead the helpless man to her feet. It’s easy to see how she enjoys the bloody work and the power.

So she’s less the personification of a biblical legend, but much more a modern femme fatale of the roaring twenties. To made that clear Stuck gave her the typical hairdo of that time.

Brave Judith

This Judith and Holofernes (c.1554) is by the Italian Renaissance painter Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574).
Interesting is the two dimensional reduction certainly inspired by roman fresco paintings.

Young Judith

Judith and the Head of Holofernes (1608) by the Italian Renaissance painter Giovanni Baglione (1571-1643).

It’s a very dramatic scenery. A very young and beautiful Judith with that gigantic severed head of Holofernes. In the back her frightened maid.

Medieval Holofernes

Here a medieval illustration from the 15th century depicting Holofernes burning down a city. Despite there’s no Judith it shows why she had to do what she did.
Besides it’s interesting to see Holofernes and his men as typical medieval knights. It’s no old story, it’s something which could happen every day.

Posing as Judith

Here three more examples of Judith by the German Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1533).





He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony the leaders of the Protestant Reformation and it seems that many of the noble ladies in Saxony liked it to be depicted as Judith the savior of her people. Cranach did maybe more than a dozen which can be found now in museums over half of the world.

Judith as Femme Fatale

Judith and Holofernes (1901) by the Austrian Symbolist and Art Nouveau painter Gustav Klimt (1862-1918).

Judith is lasciviously caressing the head of Holofernes. There is nothing historical in this painting - Judith is a modern woman, her hairstyle is that of the fin-de-siècle.
But real interesting is, that Klimt is mixing Judith and Salome. This woman showing the head as her trophy could be Salome as well. Both together become the symbol of the modern femme fatale.

The Bloody Work

Judith and Holofernes (1831) by the French painter Emile Jean Horace Vernet (1789-1863).

This today nearly unknown painting was a great event in its own time. The German poet Heinrich Heine wrote deeply impressed: "above her hips she wears an undergarment of pale yellow whose sleeve falls off her right shoulder and which she pushes up over her left hand in the manner of a butcher…
In her eyes above sparkles a sweet cruelty and the desire for vengeance; for she has her own violated body to avenge on the odious pagan...
Death sends him by the hand of a most beautiful angel into the white night of eternal oblivion. What an enviable end! If I should die one day, ye Gods, let me die like Holofernes!"

Men’s dreams!

Proud Judith

This Judith by the French painter Joseph Benjamin Constant (1845-1902) resembles a lot the other one. It’s also a proud woman who doesn’t need much symbols or action like cutting heads. The sword is enough.

Late Medieval Judith

Judith (c. 1530-33) by the Italian/Flemish Renaissance painter Ambrosius Benson (c.1490-1550).

This painting resembles still a medieval altarpiece. There is no movement, no “action” like in the later Baroque paintings. Judith is still an icon like an altarpiece. All in it is symbol: her nudeness because she seduced Holofernes, the revenging sword, her luxury clothes and the head of the enemy.