Lucas Cranach the Elder Judith with the Head of Holofernes Art Print
Brandywine General Store
Archival quality art print of Judith with the Head of Holofernes, painted circa 1530 by German Renaissance master Lucas Cranach the Elder. The Old Testament heroine Judith — who entered the camp of Assyrian general Holofernes, seduced him into a drunken stupor, and beheaded him to save her people — was a favorite subject of Cranach's workshop, which produced numerous versions of this composition around 1530. The timing was no coincidence: scholars connect this surge of Judith imagery to the founding of the Schmalkaldic League, the armed Protestant alliance formed to resist Emperor Charles V and his Catholic armies. Judith became the movement's emblem — a courageous woman striking down a tyrant. In Cranach's rendering, she stands in carefully nuanced shades of red, adorned with gold jewelry, the severed head of Holofernes held with chilling composure. Beauty and violence in perfect, unsettling tension. Religious Art Print #68
Our Products
