Judith Beheading Holofernes

A heroine from the Book of Judith

In the Book of Judith, the Assyrian general Holofernes besieges the Jewish town of Bethulia. Judith, a widow, goes to his camp with her maid, wins his trust, waits until he is drunk and asleep, and cuts off his head with his own sword. The town is saved.

Caravaggio painted the moment of the killing itself, around 1599 to 1600, in Rome. According to the Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini, which owns the painting, it was made for the Genoese banker Ottavio Costa. It hangs today in Palazzo Barberini.

Many earlier painters showed Judith calmly holding the severed head afterwards. Caravaggio chose the act in progress, which makes the picture far more shocking.

Judith frowns as she works

Judith stands at arm’s length from the bed, pulling Holofernes’s hair with one hand and drawing the sword through his neck with the other. Her brow is furrowed, her lips pressed. She looks determined, but also uneasy, as if repelled by what she must do.

She is young, with fair hair pinned up and a pearl earring tied with a black ribbon. Her white blouse is painted with crisp folds. The contrast between her clean, composed appearance and the violence of the act is deliberate.

Holofernes wakes as he dies

Holofernes twists on the bed, his mouth open in a scream, his eyes rolling towards Judith. Blood sprays from his neck in thin red jets onto the white sheet. His body is muscular and tense, one hand still gripping the bedclothes.

Caravaggio painted the moment with an anatomical frankness that was unusual even for him. It is the kind of image that made his reputation for violent realism in Rome around 1600.

An old servant waits with the sack

At the right stands Judith’s maid, called Abra in later tradition. She holds open a cloth bag ready to receive the head. Her face is deeply wrinkled, her mouth tight, her eyes fixed on the scene.

In the biblical text, the maid is not described as old. Caravaggio made her an aged woman, placing youth and age side by side. Her eagerness contrasts with Judith’s hesitation. Some see her as an embodiment of grim purpose that Judith herself does not show.

A red curtain and a black background

Above the figures hangs a heavy red curtain, the only element of décor. Everything else is dark. Light falls sharply from the left onto the three figures, leaving the rest in shadow.

This strong contrast of light and dark, often called tenebrism, became Caravaggio’s signature. The curtain works almost like stage drapery, as if the scene were being performed in front of us.

Rediscovered in 1950

For centuries the painting was little known. According to the Barberini Corsini museum, it was found almost by chance in 1950, and the Italian state acquired it in 1971.

Since then it has become one of Caravaggio’s best-known works. In 2021 to 2022 it was the centrepiece of an exhibition at Palazzo Barberini comparing it with Artemisia Gentileschi’s versions of the same subject.

Caravaggio in Rome around 1598

Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio after his family’s home town near Milan, arrived in Rome in the early 1590s. After years of poverty, he found a powerful patron in Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, who gave him rooms in his palace. By the late 1590s, Caravaggio was painting dramatic religious scenes with real people as models and strong contrasts of light and shadow.

Judith Beheading Holofernes is one of the first of these violent, theatrical pictures. It marks the moment when Caravaggio moved from small paintings of young men and still lifes to large, dramatic narratives.

Shocking realism

Few paintings before this had shown violence so directly. The blood spurts from Holofernes’s neck in thin red lines. His body twists, his mouth screams, his eyes roll. Caravaggio may have watched public executions in Rome, which were common, and his knowledge of how a body reacts gives the scene its terrible realism.

Judith, by contrast, seems almost hesitant. She holds the sword firmly but leans back, her brow furrowed. Her expression mixes determination with disgust. The contrast between her calm young face and the horror of the act is what makes the picture so powerful.

The model for Judith

The model for Judith is often identified as Fillide Melandroni, a well-known courtesan in Rome who posed for several of Caravaggio’s paintings. Using real people from the streets as models, rather than idealised faces, was one of his most controversial innovations.

Influence on later painters

Caravaggio’s version inspired many later paintings of the subject. The most famous is by Artemisia Gentileschi, whose two versions of Judith Slaying Holofernes, painted in the 1610s and 1620s, show the heroine as even more active and determined. Her paintings are often read in relation to her own experience of violence, and they have become some of the most celebrated works of the Baroque.

Where to see it

Judith Beheading Holofernes hangs in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica at Palazzo Barberini in Rome. Our hand-painted oil reproduction follows this composition. You can also compare it with Klimt’s modern Judith in Judith I.

Questions about Judith Beheading Holofernes

Who commissioned it?

It was made for the Genoese banker Ottavio Costa, in Rome.

Where is the original?

Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome.

Who is the old woman?

Judith’s maid, traditionally called Abra, who waits with a bag to carry away the head.

How large is it?

145 × 195 centimetres, oil on canvas.

Who modelled for Judith?

Probably Fillide Melandroni, a Roman courtesan who posed for Caravaggio several times.

Who else painted this scene?

Many artists, most famously Artemisia Gentileschi in the 1610s and 1620s.

Sources and image credit

• Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini: Caravaggio and Artemisia, the Challenge of Judith
• Wikimedia Commons: Giuditta e Oloferne

Faithful public-domain reproduction of Judith Beheading Holofernes (about 1599 to 1600), via Wikimedia Commons. Detail images are crops of the same historical painting; no reconstruction or upscaling.