Scripture · Psalm 119:33-40
Judith 13:8
Judith Beheading Holofernes
And she smote twice upon his neck with all her might, and she took away his head from him.
Judith extends the blade across Holofernes’s neck while an older attendant stands close beside her, gripping a gathered cloth.
About the artwork
The action occupies the bright foreground, with Judith’s pale clothing standing out against the darkness and the red drapery above the bed. Her extended arms keep a distance between her body and the victim. The attendant’s proximity compresses the scene: the painter brings the killing and the preparation to carry away its evidence into the same space.
The picture was made for the banker Ottavio Costa and appears in a 1639 inventory with a silk curtain that covered it. Its later rediscovery led to the Italian State’s purchase in 1971. The attendant’s presence is a significant artistic change: Judith’s maid waits outside the bedchamber in the biblical account, and the text does not describe her as old.
Featured in: Caravaggio’s Bible Paintings: The Painter Who Killed a Man and Kept Painting Grace
What does Judith 13:8 mean?
Judith 13 places the killing after Holofernes’s banquet, when he lies incapacitated and the other attendants have left. Judith prays for strength, takes his sword, and cuts off his head. She then brings it to her maid, who puts it in a provisions bag before their return to Bethulia.
The narrative presents this violent act as the deliverance of a threatened people through someone their enemy underestimates. Caravaggio concentrates on its disturbing physical instant rather than on the town’s later rejoicing. The painting’s close group is therefore a dramatic condensation of events that the chapter tells in sequence.
Judith 13:8 identifies the act at the center of the painting; the maid’s position beside Judith belongs to Caravaggio’s staging.
Sources
Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Rome.
Caravaggio’s Bible Paintings: The Painter Who Killed a Man and Kept Painting Grace. Artwork reading adapted from this guide.
Judith 13 — United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The narrative context; the paired quotation retains the catalog wording.
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