Judith and her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes

A violent deed has been committed, but this depiction of the biblical story of Judith and her maidservant beheading Holofernes also shows tender gestures and composure.

The painting depicts a story from the  Old Testament, the book of Judith. A story that was disputed by the Protestants and excluded from their version of the Bible.

At the heart of this work is a wicket basket holding the severed head of Holofernes. His contorted face is directed towards the viewer. The perpetrator of Holofernes’ beheading was Judith, a beautiful Jewish widow whose beauty and cold-blooded action saved her people from destruction. She and her maidservant Abra, pictured on the right, went to the camp of Holofernes, the Assyrian general whose troops were besieging the Jewish town of Betulia. Judith was invited into the general’s  tent, got him drunk and cut off his head as he slept. Taking the head as a trophy and as proof that her clever plan had succeeded, she and her maid slipped out of the enemy camp. The following morning the head was displayed on the town wall for everyone to see.

After the deed

Shortly before 1600 Caravaggio transformed this traditional theme by showing the horrific deed itself. Gentileschi opted for a less violent but more psychologically charged variant: the moment immediately after the deed was done when Judith has just given the head to her maid. The blood drips through the basket onto the white cloth intended to conceal the head. Judith is still holding the murder weapon – Holofernes’ own sword – in her right hand. The painter uses the warm tones of Judith’s opulent dress and jewellery to emphasise her beauty, in stark contrast to the ashen face of the army commander.

Judith and Abra are looking at something outside the picture plane that the viewer cannot see. They could be looking at Holofernes’ body, but from their alert demeanour it seems more likely that they are listening for a sign of whether the guards outside the tent have an inkling of what has just happened. The maid holds the basket on her hip, out of sight of any soldier who might come to investigate. Judith rests her hand on Abra’s shoulder. It is a tender gesture that connects these two women who have conspired to carry out this courageous act, but at the same time it is an expression of composure. By setting them off in sharp relief against the dark emerald green curtains of Holofernes’s luxurious tent, the attention focuses on the two as they wait in suspense. Abra is conspicuously young in the painting; many other painters depicted the maidservant as a wrinkled old woman.

Father-daughter collaboration?

The composition was repeated in a painting dated from around 1616-19 by Artemisia Gentileschi, who treated the subject several times. An article from 2019 argues that this version was also painted by Artemisia. But a majority of art historians still attribute this painting to Orazio Gentileschi. 

There is reasonable consensus on the dating of this earlier work. Most art historians place it in the 1608-1612 period, with one exception dating it after Artemisia’s version. This means the work was painted in the years Artemisia was still active in her father’s workshop, and this painting could thus have been painted as a co-production.