Judith (c. 1495): Artwork and History
Judith at the Art Institute of Chicago: date, artist attribution, materials and the museum's explanation of the work.
Judith (c. 1495) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Israhel van Meckenem the Younger German, c. 1440/45-1503.
The work and its context
The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:
The biblical heroine Judith freed the Hebrews from Assyrian oppression by seducing the general Holofernes and decapitating him in his drunken stupor. Here Israhel van Meckenem depicted Judith stuffing Holofernes’s head into her maidservant’s pouch while a battle rages in the background. Van Meckenem’s depiction of the gruesome act is matter-of-fact. While the decapitated body remains visible, the sword is clean and the setting devoid of blood.
Object facts
- Title: Judith
- Date: c. 1495
- Artist attribution: Israhel van Meckenem the Younger German, c. 1440/45-1503
- Place of origin: Germany
- Medium: Engraving on ivory laid paper
- Dimensions: Sheet trimmed within platemark: 21.4 × 31.8 cm (8 7/16 × 12 9/16 in.)
- Type: Print
- Department: Prints and Drawings
- Reference number: 1956.821
Collection credit
Bequest of Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.
View the original
Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.
The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.
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