Judith with the Head of Holofernes
Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472 to 1553) · About 1530
A fashionable young woman in a plumed red hat and a heavy gold chain rests one gloved hand on the pommel of a sword. With the other she holds, by the hair, the severed head of a bearded man, and she looks out at you with an expression of perfect calm. She is Judith, the widow from the Old Testament who saved her city by charming the Assyrian general Holofernes, getting him drunk and cutting off his head in his tent. Cranach has dressed her as a lady of the Saxon court of about 1530, and the contrast between her elegance and the grisly trophy is the whole point.
Cranach was court painter to the Electors of Saxony in Wittenberg and a friend of Martin Luther, and his workshop turned out small panels like this in quantity for aristocratic buyers. Look at the surface. The panel is painted with enamel-like smoothness, the gold chain is picked out link by link, the feathers of the hat are individual strokes, and the face has the pale, almond-eyed look that is his trademark. The background is plain black, which pushes the figure forward and makes the red of the hat and the sleeves glow. The head of Holofernes is painted with the same detached care as the jewellery.
The museum acquired the panel in 2018, and it is the first Cranach painting of this type in a Japanese public collection. Judith was a favourite subject at the Saxon court, understood both as a symbol of virtue triumphing over tyranny and as an elegant pretext for painting a beautiful woman with a sword. Cranach and his sons produced at least a dozen versions; here the small scale lets you get close enough to see every thread of the embroidery.
Did You Know? Cranach painted so many Judiths that scholars have joked the women of the Wittenberg court must all have owned a plumed hat and a sword.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.