Judith with the Head of Holofernes (n.d.): Artwork and History

Judith with the Head of Holofernes (n.d.) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Girolamo Mocetto (Italian, c.1470-after 1531) after Andrea Mantegna (Italian, 1431-1506).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

This engraving illustrates a scene from the Apocryphal book of Judith. Judith, angered that her country was under foreign rule, decided to kill the enemy leader, Holofernes. She visited him and drank wine with him until he fell asleep; then, taking his sword, she “struck his neck twice with all her might, and severed his head from his body.” Girolamo Mocetto depicted Judith immediately after this act, handing Holofernes’s severed head to her maid.

Object facts

• Title: Judith with the Head of Holofernes
• Date: n.d.
• Artist attribution: Girolamo Mocetto (Italian, c.1470-after 1531) after Andrea Mantegna (Italian, 1431-1506)
• Place of origin: Italy
• Medium: Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
• Dimensions: Image/sheet, trimmed within platemark: 32.4 × 21.8 cm (12 13/16 × 8 5/8 in.)
• Type: Print
• Department: Prints and Drawings
• Reference number: 1956.1030

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.

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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.