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Standing at the entrance of an open tent, a woman holds the severed head of a bearded man over a sack held open by another person in this vertical painting. All the people have pale, ivory-white skin. To our right, Judith, who holds the head, stands with her body angled to our left. She looks back over her shoulder, off to our right, with light brown eyes. She has a long nose, smooth cheeks, and her small, peach-tinged lips are closed. Tightly curled, amber-brown ringlets frame her oval face and fall to her shoulders. Her loose, pearl-white dress, which is almost the color of her skin, falls off one shoulder and is belted just below her bust. A long, ultramarine-blue cloth drapes over one shoulder and arm, and around her body. Open-toed, moss-green sandals peek out from beneath her hem. Her right hand, to our left, grasps a long, straight, iron blade by her hip. The blade has a ridge up along its center, and the tip is cut straight across. She holds up the severed head in her other hand, so that arm crosses her body. The severed head faces away from us so only a sliver of the nose, cheek, and one closed eye are visible. The head has chestnut-brown hair and beard, and the mouth is open wide. To our left, the attendant holding the sack looks down at the head, her face framed by a white cloth that wraps around her head, under her chin, and across her shoulders. She wears a canary-yellow tunic over silvery-gray pants. A red cape drapes over one shoulder and around her body. She is barefoot. The tent is supported by a wooden pole, just beyond and between the pair. The gold-edged, rose-pink flaps of the tent have been pulled back and tied to each side. The interior beyond them is dark but the end of a gold bed draped with white cloth and one bare foot, the sole coming toward us, emerges from the shadows, to our right of Judith. The ground beneath the tent is made of tan, roughly square stones, scattered with pebbles. The peak of the tent rises off the top center of the composition, and the area to each side is midnight blue.

Andrea Mantegna or Follower (Possibly Giulio Campagnola)

Judith with the Head of Holofernes, c. 1495/1500

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 13

Medium

tempera on poplar panel

Dimensions

painted surface: 30.1 x 18.1 cm (11 7/8 x 7 1/8 in.)
overall: 30.8 x 19.7 cm (12 1/8 x 7 3/4 in.)

framed: 45.7 x 32.1 x 7.6 cm (18 x 12 5/8 x 3 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.42

Artists / Makers

Andrea Mantegna (painter) Paduan, c. 1431 - 1506

Giulio Campagnola (painter) Venetian, 1482 - after 1514

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Overview

The story of Judith and Holofernes comes from the Old Testament Apocrypha, sacred texts that were excluded from the Bible. Besieged by the Assyrians, the beautiful Israelite widow Judith went into the enemy camp of Holofernes to win his confidence. During a great banquet Holofernes became drunk, and later in his tent Judith seized his sword and cut off his head. Their leader gone, the enemy was soon defeated by the Israelites. This ancient heroine was understood in the Renaissance as a symbol of civic virtue, of intolerance of tyranny, and of a just cause triumphing over evil. The moralizing subject was a favorite of the artist.

Judith is portrayed as if she were a classical statue. The drapery folds of her costume, a clinging white gown, fall in sculptural forms, and her stance, the twisting contrapposto prevalent in Renaissance figures, derives from ancient models. The heroine is serene and calm, detached from the gruesome scene as her victim's head is dropped into a sack held by the servant.

Mantegna was trained in the Paduan workshop of Squarcione, but he was strongly influenced by the Florentine sculptor Donatello. He married the daughter of the Venetian artist Jacopo Bellini, and was influenced by his work, as well as that of his brother-in-law Giovanni Bellini.

Inscription

by later hand, on reverse on gesso surface: AN: MONTEGNA

Provenance

Possibly Charles I, King of England [1600-1649]; by exchange to William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke [1580-1630], Wilton House, Salisbury, before 1625; by inheritance to his brother, Philip Herbert, 4th earl of Pembroke [1584-1649/1650]; by inheritance to his son, Philip Herbert, 5th earl of Pembroke [1620/1621-1669]; by inheritance to his son, William Herbert, 6th earl of Pembroke [1640-1674]; by inheritance to his half-brother, Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke [1652/1653-1683]; by inheritance to his brother, Thomas Herbert, 8th earl of Pembroke [1656-1732/1733]; by inheritance to his son, Henry Herbert, 9th earl of Pembroke [1693-1749/1750];[1] by inheritance to his son, Henry Herbert, 10th earl of Pembroke [1734-1794]; by inheritance to his son, George Augustus Herbert, 11th earl of Pembroke [1759-1827]; by inheritance to his son, Robert Henry Herbert, 12th earl of Pembroke [1791-1862]; by inheritance to his nephew, George Robert Charles Herbert, 13th early of Pembroke [1850-1895]; by inheritance to his brother, Sidney Herbert, 14th earl of Pembroke [1853-1913]; by inheritance to his son, Reginald Herbert, 15th earl of Pembroke [1880-1960]; (his sale, Sotheby's, London, 5-6 and 9-10 July 1917, 4th day, no. 542 [sold privately]); listed July to September 1917 in (Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London) stock, owned jointly with (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York); on approval to Carl W. Hamilton [1886-1967], New York, by 1920, and returned 1921;[2] purchased c. 1923 by Joseph E. Widener, Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania;[3] inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, after purchase by funds of the Estate; gift 1942 to NGA.

[1] The painting is first recorded in the Earl of Pembroke's collection at Wilton by C. Gambarini, A Description of the Earl of Pembroke's Pictures, Westminster, 1731: 93, no. 4. Johann David Passavant, Tour of a German Artist in England, English ed., 2 vols, London, 1836: 1:306, connected it with the mention of a painting of Judith by Raphael in Abraham van der Doort's 1639 inventory of the collection of King Charles I (published as Abraham van der Doort, A Catalogue and Description of King Charles the First's Capital Collection of Pictures, Limnings, Statues, Bronzes, Medals, and Other Curiosities, London, 1757), which was said to have been obtained in exchange for two works that had belonged to the Third Earl of Pembroke: a portrait of a young woman and a religious work by Parmigianino. The Raphael Judith is thus mentioned twice in connection with these two other works. First it appears in item no. 15: "A moddest forward full-faced painted younge womans picture..., onely a head, halfe soe bigg as the life wch your-Matie togeither with the 2. Children of Permencius had in way of Exchange for the little Judith of Rafell Urbin when you were Prince of the late decd Lo: of Penbrooke Steward of your Mats houshould: painted upon the right light." The Judith is mentioned again in item no. 26: "Item a peece of. 2. naked Children imbraceing one another signifying Christ and St John in-the desart said to bee don by Parmentius Chaunged by yor Maty with my Lo: Steward Pembrooke decd for a Judith beeing a little intire figure said to have been don by Raphael d'Urben..." (quoted from Oliver Millar, "Abraham van der Doort's Catalogue of the Collections of Charles I," Walpole Society 37 (1960): 79, 81). But Millar 1960: 232, rejecting Passavant's identification, has suggested that the Judith in the inventory may be identifiable with Giorgione's well-known painting of the heroine in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.

The painting's inclusion in a 1992 exhibition about Lorenzo de' Medici's Giardino di San Marco reflected its occasional identification with a small panel painting of Judith by Mantegna, listed in the 1492 inventory of Lorenzo's collection. This work was similar in scale and function to NGA 1942.9.42, that is, "una tavoletta [small panel] in una cassetta [box] dipinti su una Giudetta chon la testa d'Oloferno e una serva, opera d'Andrea Squarcione [i.e., Mantegna]" (Libro d'inventario 1992: 51). Paul Kristeller, Andrea Mantegna, trans. S. Arthur Strong, London and New York, 1901: 20-21, who did not regard the NGA painting as Mantegna's, listed Lorenzo's little panel of the same subject among the artist's lost or missing works. Lionello Venturi (Pitture italiane in America, Milan, 1931, and expanded English ed., Italian Paintings in America, trans. Countess van den Heuvel and Charles Marriott, 3 vols., New York and Milan, 1933: 2: pl. 340, note) first identified the NGA painting with Lorenzo's picture, and Hans Tietze (Meisterwerke europäischer Malerei in Amerika, Vienna, 1935: 328, and English ed., 1939: 312) followed suit. Though accepted hypothetically by Renata Cipriani, Tutta la pittura del Mantegna, 1st and 2nd ed., Milan, 1956: 60, and English ed., All the Paintings of Mantegna, trans. Paul Colacicchi, 2 vols., New York, 1963: 79, and by Rona Goffen in Small Paintings of the Masters, Masterpieces Reproduced in Actual Size. Early Italian School, ed. Leslie Shore, 3 vols., Redding, Connecticut, 1980: no. 30, the identification was rejected by Erika Tietze-Conrat, Mantegna. Paintings Drawings Engravings, New York, 1955: 245; Niny Garavaglia, L'opera completa del Mantegna, Milan, 1967: 109-110; and Ronald Lightbown, Mantegna, Oxford, 1986: 435, cat. 30.

[2] The Getty Provenance Index provides the details about the listing in Agnew's stock. The entry for the painting in the Duveen Brothers Records has the following notations: "1/2 share Scott Fowles," "Sotheby 19/7/17," and "Agnew 23/9/17" (copy in NGA curatorial files; X Book, Reel 422, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles). According to Edward Fowles (Memories of Duveen Brothers, London, 1976: 127-129), a large collection of Italian paintings was offered on approval to Hamilton by 1920, but he did not purchase them and returned them to Duveen the following year.

[3] Widener collection records, in NGA curatorial files, give a purchase date of c. 1921, but the Duveen Brothers Records list expenses for the painting into 1923, indicating they probably still had ownership until that time.

Associated Names

Agnew & Sons, Ltd., Thomas
Charles I, King of England
Duveen Brothers, Inc.
Hamilton, Carl W.
Pembroke, George Augustus, 11th Earl of
Pembroke, George Robert Charles Herbert, 13th Earl of
Pembroke, Henry Herbert, 10th Earl of
Pembroke, Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of
Pembroke, Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of
Pembroke, Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of
Pembroke, Philip Herbert, 7th Earl of
Pembroke, Reginald Herbert, 15th Earl of
Pembroke, Robert Henry Herbert, 12th Earl of
Pembroke, Sidney Herbert, 14th Earl of
Pembroke, Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of
Pembroke, Willaim Herbert, 3rd Earl of
Pembroke, William Herbert, 6th Earl of
Sotheby's, London
Widener, Joseph E.

Exhibition History

1857: Art Treasures of the United Kingdom: Paintings by Ancient Masters, Art Treasures Palace, Museum of Oriental Art, Manchester, 1857, no. 96.

1894: Exhibition of Venetian Art, The New Gallery, London, 1894-1895, no. 228 (no. 125 of small catalogue).

1913: Second National Loan Exhibition. Woman and Child in Art, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1913-1914, no. 41A.

1920: Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1920, unnumbered catalogue.

1924: Loan Exhibition of Important Early Italian Paintings in the Possession of Notable American Collectors, Duveen Brothers, New York, 1924, no. 22 (no. 40, as Judith Before the Tent of Holofernes, in illustrated 1926 version of catalogue).

1930: Exhibition of Italian Art 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1930, no. 186, as Judith before the Tent of Holofernes (no. 187 in commemorative catalogue published 1931; not in souvenir catalogue).

1938: Exhibition of Venetian Painting from the Fifteenth Century through the Eighteenth Century, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1938, no. 42, repro.

1939: An Exhibition of Italian Paintings and Drawings, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, March-April 1939, no. 26.

1939: Masterpieces of Art. European Paintings and Sculptures from 1300-1800, New York World's Fair, May-October 1939, no. 232, repro.

1979: Berenson and the Connoisseurship of Italian Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1979, no. 17, repro.

1992: Andrea Mantegna, Royal Academy of Arts, London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1992, no. 140, repro., as Judith with the Head of Holofernes after Andrea Mantegna (shown only in London).

1992: Il Giardino di San Marco: Maestri e Compagni del Giovane Michelangelo, Casa Buonarroti, Florence, 1992, no. 4, color repro.

2005: Masterpieces in Miniature: Italian Manuscript Illumination from the J. Paul Getty Museum, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2005-2006, not in brochure.

2008: Mantegna, 1431-1506, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2008-2009, no. 72, repro.

2008: Mantegna, Musée dy Louvre, Paris, 2008-2009, no. 72, repro.

2009: Tullio Lombardo and Venetian High Renaissance Sculpture, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2009, not in catalogue.

Bibliography

1923: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro.

1931: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 162, repro.

1935: Tietze, Hans. Meisterwerke europäischer Malerei in Amerika. Vienna, 1935: 65, repro. (English ed., Masterpieces of European Painting in America. New York, 1939: 65, repro.).

1941: Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 77, repro.

1942: Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 6.

1944: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 58, color repro., as Judith with the Head of Holofernes.

1948: Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 10, repro.

1951: Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 72-74, repro.

1956: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 22, repro.

1959: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Early Italian Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number Three in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 38, color repro.

1960: The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 23.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 94, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 82.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:70, color repro.

1968: Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:242, as by Andrea Mantegna.

1968: Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 32-34, color repro.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 72, repro.

1968: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 25-26, fig. 57.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 214, repro.

1979: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:296-297; 2:pl. 210.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 114, no. 91, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 248, repro.

1985: Ford, Brinsley. "Pictures lost to the Nation." NACF Magazine 29 (Christmas 1985): 14, repro.

1991: Morandotti, Alessandro. "La fortuna collezionistica della pittura gotica e rinascimentale fra Ottocento e Novecento." In Mauro Natale, ed. Pittura italiana dal '300 al '500. Milan, 1991: 40, fig. 15, as by Andrea Mantegna.

1992: Boorsch, Suzanne, et al. Andrea Mantegna. Exh. cat. Royal Academy of Arts, London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. London and Milan, 1992: 140.

1992: National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 26, repro.

1995: Halpine, Susana M. "An Investigation of Artists' Materials Using Amino Acid Analysis: Introduction of the One-Hour Extraction Method." Studies in the History of Art 51 (1995): 4-53, repro. no. 12.

1998: Apostolos-Cappadona, Diane. "Beheading/Decapitation (Acheiropaiec Heads)." In Helene E. Roberts, ed. Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art, 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 1:122.

1998: Faxon, Alicia Craig. "Fatal Woman/Femme Fatale." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 1:319.

2000: Caglioti, Francesco. Donatello e i Medici: storia del David e della Giuditta__. 2 vols. Florence, 2000: 1:256; 2:fig. 269.

2001: Paul, Tatjana. Mantegna: il sogno dell'antico, l'oro della corte. Art Book 34. Milan, 2001: 94, 95 repro.

2002: Quodbach, Esmée. "The Last of the American Versailles: The Widener Collection at Lynnewood Hall." Simiolus 29, no. 1/2 (2002): 82, 96.

2003: Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 435-443, color repro.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 36-37, no. 25, color repro.

2004: Salmazo, Alberta De Nicolò. Andrea Mantegna. Milan, 2004: 196, 247, fig. 48.

2004: Santucci, Paola. Su Andrea Mantegna. Naples, 2004: 125-127, 293 fig. 73.

2005: Agosti, Giovanni. Su Mantegna. Milan, 2005: 296-297, fig. 62.

2006: Fahy, Everett. "Early Italian paintings in Washington and Philadelphia." The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1241 (August 2006): 538 n. 4, 539, as by Andrea Mantegna.

2008: Allen, Denise, with Peta Motture. Andrea Riccio: Renaissance Master of Bronze. Exh. cat. The Frick Collection, New York. London, 2008: 29-30, 39 n. 84, fig. II.8.

2009: Schumacher, Andreas, et al. Botticelli: Likeness, Myth, Devotion. Exh. cat. Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, 2009: 248, fig. 130.

2011: Pergam, Elizabeth A. The Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857: Entrepreneurs, Connoisseurs and the Public. Farnham and Burlington, 2011: 214, fig. 5.3, 312.

2013: Lucco, Mauro. Mantegna. Milan, 2013: 262, fig. 73, 263, fig. 74, 264, 284, fig. 4, as by Andrea Mantegna.

2015: Fletcher, Francis. “Mantegna’s Fictive Bronze Judith and Dido: Beyond Exemplarity.” In Stephen J. Campbell and Jérémie Koering. Andrea Mantegna: Making Art (History). Chichester, West Sussex, 2015: 184, pl. 6.

2021: Debenedetti, Ana and Pierre Curie, eds. Botticelli, artiste & designer. Exh. cat. Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, 2021: 207-208, fig. 54.