Judith
1525
Medium
Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image/plate/sheet: 5.4 × 3.6 cm (2 3/16 × 1 7/16 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
79002
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The stalwart heroine of the Book of Judith from the Hebrew Apocrypha, the beautiful widow Judith seduced and beheaded the Assyrian general Holofernes, whose forces had besieged her city, in order to save her people. Depicted here in the nude, she sits triumphantly on Holofernes’s corpse, with a firm grip on her sword and the disembodied head. Judith was the rare female leader to be celebrated as such during this period.
About the Artist
Barthel Beham · 1502–1540
Barthel Beham (1502–1540), a pivotal figure in the German Renaissance, was born in Nuremberg into a family of artists. The younger brother of the renowned engraver Hans Sebald Beham, he honed his craft under the tutelage of his elder sibling and the master Albrecht Dürer, absorbing the precise techniques of engraving and painting that defined Nuremberg's vibrant artistic scene. Emerging as a prodi...