Caravaggio's Judith and Holofernes: story, meaning and where to see it

Judith Beheading Holofernes (in Italian Giuditta e Oloferne) is the oil painting on canvas by Caravaggio showing the biblical heroine Judith cutting off the head of the Assyrian general Holofernes, watched by the old maidservant Abra. It was painted in Rome around 1599 for the banker Ottavio Costa, measures 145 x 195 cm and hangs in Rome, at Palazzo Barberini, in the National Galleries of Ancient Art.

On this page you will find the biblical story, what the painting depicts and who its three figures are, its meaning, the secrets revealed by X-rays and archives, the comparison with Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith and where to see it. At the centre is the scene as Caravaggio painted it: the one we have printed on Amalfi paper.

The story of Judith and Holofernes

The story comes from the Book of Judith, one of the books of the Old Testament included in the Catholic Bible. King Nebuchadnezzar sends his general Holofernes to subdue the peoples of the West. The Assyrian army besieges the Jewish city of Bethulia and cuts off its water: the inhabitants are ready to surrender.

They are saved by Judith, a young, wealthy, beautiful and deeply religious widow. She puts on her finest clothes and, with her maidservant, goes to the enemy camp pretending to betray her people. Holofernes is captivated and invites her to a banquet. At the end of the evening the general, drunk, falls asleep in his tent: Judith takes his own sword and cuts off his head with two blows. The maid puts it in a bag, the two women return to Bethulia and the Assyrians, without their leader, flee.

Why does Judith cut off Holofernes's head? To save her people: she is a woman alone and unarmed who defeats an army with courage and cunning. That is why, over the centuries, she has become the symbol of virtue triumphing over tyranny.

What Caravaggio's painting depicts

Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes, c. 1599, oil on canvas, 145 x 195 cm. Rome, National Galleries of Ancient Art, Palazzo Barberini

Before Caravaggio, Judith was almost always painted after the killing: a beautiful, calm woman holding the enemy's head. Caravaggio chooses the most terrible instant, while the blade is cutting. The sword is halfway through the neck, blood spurts out, Holofernes's eyes roll back and his mouth is open in a last scream, his muscles still tense.

The scene is built with very few elements: three figures and a great red drape above, like a theatre curtain. The light comes from the upper left and floods Judith, while the background stays black. It is Caravaggio's first true "history painting" and one of the first in which he uses the violent contrasts of light and shadow that would make him famous.

The figures: Judith, Holofernes and the maid Abra

Judith

Judith's face, with her furrowed brow

She is a very young woman, in a white blouse and a bodice, with pearl earrings and her hair tied up. She is not a fury: she holds her arm out straight, her body leaning back as if to keep away from the blood, and her forehead is creased with disgust and concentration. She does the deed because she must, not because she wants to. Two names are suggested for the model: the courtesan Fillide Melandroni, who posed for other paintings by Caravaggio, or, according to more recent studies, Maddalena Antognetti.

Caravaggio, Portrait of a Courtesan, believed to depict Fillide Melandroni (formerly in Berlin, destroyed in 1945)

Holofernes

The general is caught asleep, naked on the bed, one arm still trying to rise. His scream is one of the most striking faces in all 17th-century painting: Caravaggio captures the moment life leaves him. Some scholars have seen in it a self-portrait of the painter, but this is only a hypothesis.

The maid Abra

The maid Abra

In the Bible the maid is young. Caravaggio turns her into an old woman with a deeply lined face and staring eyes, clutching the cloth in which she will put the head. Next to Judith's smooth skin she becomes her opposite: youth and old age, beauty and ugliness, hesitation and greed. She gives voice to the horror of the viewer.

The meaning of Caravaggio's Judith and Holofernes

The museum describes it as a "theatre of opposites": darkness and light, old age and youth, life and death, strength and fragility. Judith is good defeating evil, the weak overcoming the powerful: in Counter-Reformation Rome she was also an image of the Church triumphing over its enemies.

But Caravaggio adds something that was not there before: the truth of the act. The heroine is afraid, the blood is real, death is physical. Nothing is decorative: the viewer is forced to watch a killing up close, as if in the tent. That is why the painting still strikes those who see it in person.

Three secrets of the painting

The covered breast. X-rays have shown that, in a first version, Judith's breast was bare. Caravaggio then covered it with the white blouse, which still lets the shape show through, almost transparently.

Beatrice Cenci. On 11 September 1599, in Rome, the young noblewoman Beatrice Cenci was beheaded at Ponte Sant'Angelo for killing her violent father, before an enormous crowd. According to a widespread hypothesis Caravaggio was there, and that execution inspired the rawness of the painting. There is no proof, but the dates match.

The painting lost and found. Ottavio Costa loved the painting so much that in his will he ordered his heirs never to sell it. Then all trace of it was lost for centuries. It reappeared only around 1950 in a private collection: the restorer Pico Cellini pointed it out to the great scholar Roberto Longhi, and in 1951 it was shown at the famous Caravaggio exhibition in Milan. The Italian State bought it in 1971.

The documents do not fully agree on the date: the museum gives c. 1599, while a payment receipt from 1602 has led some scholars to suggest a few years later.

Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi: the two Judiths compared

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes, c. 1612-1613. Naples, Capodimonte Museum

Caravaggio's painting had a huge influence in Rome, and the most famous response came from Artemisia Gentileschi, daughter of the painter Orazio, a friend of Caravaggio. Artemisia painted the same scene several times: the best-known versions are in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples (c. 1612-1613) and the Uffizi in Florence (around 1620).

The differences are striking. In Caravaggio, Judith is slender and keeps her victim at a distance, while the maid watches from the side. In Artemisia the two women work together: the maid, young and sturdy, holds Holofernes down, while Judith presses his head onto the bed and drives the sword in with all the strength of her arms. Blood spatters the sheets. Many critics have also read in this violence the painter's own story: in 1612 she had faced the trial against Agostino Tassi, the painter who had raped her.

The subject was painted by many other artists too, from Donatello to Klimt: we wrote about his most famous Judith in Judith II by Gustav Klimt.

Judith and Holofernes on Amalfi paper, to hang at home

Caravaggio is not a painter to glance at in passing. The darkness around the figures, the red drape, the light that cuts through the scene like Judith's sword: these are paintings that change a room. Hung at home, this Judith is a piece of Baroque Rome, and a guaranteed conversation with anyone who walks in.

We have printed the whole painting on a sheet of handmade Amalfi paper, the oldest paper in Italy: the deep black of the background and the red of the drape stay full, while around the image remains the margin with the deckled edges of the handmade process. The sheet measures 29 x 42 cm (11.4 x 16.5 in) and is mounted in a handmade beech frame: 31 x 44 cm (12.2 x 17.3 in) in all. Each print comes with a certificate of authenticity, also on Amalfi paper, signed by the craftsman who printed it.

Why it is not a poster

A badly printed Caravaggio loses everything: the black turns grey, the red turns brown. We chose the oldest paper in Italy.

Where is Caravaggio's Judith and Holofernes

The painting is in Rome, in the National Galleries of Ancient Art at Palazzo Barberini, on Via delle Quattro Fontane, a short walk from Piazza Barberini and the Barberini stop on Metro line A. The same museum holds other works by Caravaggio and masterpieces such as Raphael's Fornarina. The painting is sometimes lent to major exhibitions: before you go, it is worth checking on the museum's website that it is on display.

If you love Caravaggio, on our blog you will also find our analysis of The Cardsharps, another of his Roman paintings. And if you want this Judith always before your eyes, there is our print of Judith and Holofernes on Amalfi paper.

Where to hang it, and who to give it to

In the living room, above a sofa or a console, where the darkness and red of the painting give character to the wall. In the study or library, next to your art books. In the office of a lawyer or a judge, where the story of a woman defeating a tyrant has a precise meaning. And as a gift for anyone who loves Caravaggio, Rome and Baroque art, or for a woman you admire for her courage.

Frequently asked questions