''Judith with the Head of Holofernes'' is a glue tempera on canvas painting by

Andrea Mantegna Andrea Mantegna (, ; ; September 13, 1506) was an Italian Renaissance painter, a student of Ancient Rome, Roman archeology, and son-in-law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with Perspective (graphical), pe ...

, now in the

National Gallery of Ireland The National Gallery of Ireland () houses the national collection of Irish and European art. It is located in the centre of Dublin with one entrance on Merrion Square, beside Leinster House, and another on Clare Street, Dublin, Clare Street. It ...

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

.Mauro Lucco (ed), ''Mantegna a Mantova 1460–1506'', exhibition catalogue, Skira Milano, 2006 It is in the

grisaille Grisaille ( or ; , from ''gris'' 'grey') means in general any European painting that is painted in grey. History Giotto used grisaille in the lower registers of his frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua () and Robert Campin, Jan van Ey ...

style.

History

This painting is part of the

production that characterized many works of Mantegna in the later years of his career, from to the end of his life. These works were almost sculptural and were much appreciated in courts. At the time, near Mantua, there was a scarcity of active sculptors and it was difficult to procure marble, which had to be imported from nearby territories. This artwork exhibits similar techniques, formal and thematic, with Mantegna's painting of '' Samson and Delilah''. It has been hypothesized that they both could have hung together in one of the private rooms of

Isabella d'Este Isabella d'Este (19 May 1474 – 13 February 1539) was the Marchioness of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance as a major cultural and political figure. She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion ...

in the Ducal Palace of Mantua. ''Judith with the Head of Holofernes'' was acquired in Italy at an unknown time in the 20th century by Lewis Strange Wingfield. Afterwards, it passed into the collection of John Malcolm of Poltalloch in Scotland. It was then sold in 1896 to the director of the

. In the first years of its display to the public and to scholars, skepticism about the work circulated, despite the high opinions of

Bernard Berenson Bernard Berenson (June 26, 1865 – October 6, 1959) was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. His book ''The Drawings of the Florentine Painters'' was an international success. His wife Mary is thought to have had a large ...

and (both wrote about it in 1901). Now, the work is generally attributed to Mantegna, with some reservations from those who hold the work of students and assistants on the painting to have more or less importance.

Description and style

Like Mantegna's other '' Judith and Holofernes'' and a drawing of the same subject in the in Florence,

Judith The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic Church, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Christian Old Testament of the Bible but Development of the Hebrew Bible canon, excluded from the ...

and her handmaid stand before the triangular tent of Holofernes. He was decapitated by Judith, who is holding in her hands a sword and placing his head in a sack held by her handmaid. The painting uses tones of grey and white highlights, enriched in some places with brown brushstrokes, that accentuate the relief and the painting's illusionistic quality. The whole of the tent is left in shadow with some details emerging from the darkness, like the foot of Holofernes on the bed. The background is mottled like a fake marble. The passages of the drapery and the elegant play of lines in the flag at right, which twists with the wind around itself and the flagpole, are particularly skillful. The difficulty of painting on linen, almost without ground, does not permit corrections or

pentimenti In painting, a ; from the verb , meaning 'to repent'; plural ''pentimenti'') is "the presence or emergence of earlier images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and painted over". Sometimes the English form "pentiment" is used, especiall ...

References

External links

{{Andrea Mantegna 1495 paintings Paintings by Andrea Mantegna Collection of the National Gallery of Ireland Paintings of Judith Tempera paintings