Judith

This Judith shows the biblical heroine at the moment she holds up the head of Holofernes, a subject that was popular in Venetian painting of the period. The work is attributed to Palma Vecchio. Although that attribution was once questioned, it is now generally accepted, and specialists who examined the picture consider it a mature work by the artist. A notable feature is the damage caused by heavy-handed cleaning, which affected especially the head of Holofernes and makes some facial details harder to read. For much of its history the painting belonged to the Della Rovere collection at the ducal palace in Urbino, where it was at times attributed to Titian and to Palma. It later passed to the Medici and, in 1798, moved to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. During the Second World War it was seized by German forces and returned to Florence in 1945. Its interest lies both in its painterly quality and in the path it has taken from palace to palace before reaching its present home.

Painter

Palma Vecchio

Date

1526

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

90 × 71 cm

Museum

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Movement

Venetian school

Genre

religious art

Depicts

Judith

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