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Judith with the Head of Holofernes

1650s
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 640
The taste for copper supports among collectors moved from Italy to northern Europe—notably Antwerp, where this work was likely painted—by the mid-seventeenth century. Teniers was a prolific painter closely involved at the Flemish court. This painting was acquired by an American collector during the French Revolution and donated to The Met shortly after the museum was founded. The biblical subject represents the Jewish heroine Judith, who saved the city of Bethulia by first beguiling and then beheading the Assyrian general Holofernes. Judith appears accompanied by her maid and displaying Holofernes’s severed head as a trophy.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Judith with the Head of Holofernes
  • Artist: David Teniers the Younger (Flemish, Antwerp 1610–1690 Brussels)
  • Date: 1650s
  • Medium: Oil on copper
  • Dimensions: 14 1/2 x 10 3/8 in. (36.8 x 26.4 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Gift of Gouverneur Kemble, 1872
  • Object Number: 72.2
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

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Theatrvm pictorivm : in quo exhibentur ipsius manu delineatæ, eiusque curâ in æs incise picturæ, archetipæ Italicæ, quas ipse ser.mus Archdux in pinacothecam suam Bruxellis collegit
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