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Judith with the Head of Holofernes

Elisabetta Sirani (Italian, 1638-1665) (?)

Copy after Giovanni Andrea Sirani (Italian, 1610-1670) (?)

1638-1665 (Baroque)

oil on canvas

Painted surface H: 51 x W: 36 1/8 in. (129.5 x 91.7 cm)

Description
According to the Book of Judith, the Jewish widow Judith saved the Israelites from the Assyrians by decapitating their general Holofernes, whose army had besieged her city. She did this after having made him drunk at a banquet. Judith is commonly depicted as being assisted by an older maidservant in placing the head in a sack. The contrast between Holofernes's crude features and the heroine's beauty underlines the moral message of the eventual triumph of virtue over evil.

The Bolognese painter Elisabetta Sirani based her style on that of Guido Reni (1575-1642), who was admired for his idealized depictions of women, as in his Penitent Magdalene (Walters 37.2631).

For more information on this painting, please see Federico Zeri's 1976 catalogue no. 359, pp. 478-479.
Additional Information

Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902

37.253

Charles Street: Third Floor: 17th Century Art

Bologna, Italy


Provenance

Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [1897 catalogue: no. 515, as Ferbis]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

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