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Judith and Holofernes
Valentin de Boulogne French
Not on view
Having plied the Assyrian general with drink, Judith "took down his fauchion [sword] from thence, and approached to his bed, and took hold of the hair of his head, and said, Strengthen me, O Lord God of Israel, this day. And she smote twice upon his neck with all her might." Others, including Caravaggio, had treated the subject memorably, but none described with comparable psychological insight the determination of a young woman. Judith’s old maid, whose features contrast with hers, casts an assessing glance back at Holofernes’s groin.
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