Giorgione: Judith

  

This year I have been posting my various interpretive discoveries on this site. The following discussion of Giorgione's Judith is the eighth in the series.

Although originally given to Raphael, scholars for over a century have agreed that Judith with the Head of Holofernes is an early work by Giorgione. According to recent catalogs, it was a ground-breaking work.

Giorgione Judith
Hermitage, St. Petersburg

In her 1996 catalog Jaynie Anderson credited Giorgione with the introduction of “the Jewish heroine of the Apocrypha to Venetian painting….” * Three years later Terisio Pignatti wrote that Giorgione’s Judith introduced “numerous innovations that make the painting fascinating, particularly in the field of iconography..." **  In a 2007 catalog Wolfgang Eller claimed that Giorgione’s figure of Judith “is the first really feminine and the first graceful figure in Venetian art.” ***

Characteristically, Giorgione avoided the use of stock or standard iconographical elements. Eller noted that Giorgione’s Judith contains “no optical indication of the events. There is no female servant, no tent, no besieged city, and no waiting figures in the background that illustrate the story.” 

All commentators seem to agree that the most striking element in the painting is the bare leg of Judith. According to Pignatti, "Giorgione inserts a completely new motif in the garments which reveal the left leg of the woman." For explanation, scholars fall back on "eroticism" and "sensuality." Eller regards the bare leg as highly erotic.

the raised leg makes an extensive laying bare of the female thigh possible for the painter. In Giorgione’s time, this was considered highly erotic, for a woman to show only her calves was even more daring than a bare bosom. Thus from the aspect of the observer of those times, the depicted figure is identifiable as being erotic. (48)

It would appear, however, that in depicting the “bare thigh” Giorgione was just paying close attention to the biblical account in the Latin Vulgate, the only Bible in use at the time. Chapter 9 of the Book of Judith gives the famous prayer of the Jewish heroine as she prepares for her encounter with the enemy tyrant. Here is verse 2 taken from the Jerusalem Bible.

     Lord, God of my father Simeon,
     You armed him with a sword to take vengeance on the foreigners
     who had undone a virgin's girdle to her shame,
     laid bare her thigh to her confusion,
     violated her womb to her dishonor...

Judith is referring to the story of the rape of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and the sister of Simeon, from the Book of Genesis, 34: 1-3.

Dinah, who was Jacob’s daughter by Leah, went out to visit the women of that region. Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, who was ruler of that region, saw her, carried her off and raped her, and so dishonoured her.

This incident led to the slaughter of the Hivite men after they had been tricked into undergoing circumcision. 

Apparently, Giorgione used an exposed thigh to indicate a woman in danger of sexual assault. In an early work that we only have in a seventeenth century copy by David Teniers, Giorgione used the same motif. He exposed the thigh of another woman in danger of sexual assault.

 

David Teniers: copy of a lost Giorgione

Although the painting is usually called the “Discovery of Paris,” it is actually a depiction of the apocryphal legend of the encounter of the Holy Family with robbers on the flight into Egypt. The young Giorgione had the audacity to depict the bare leg of the Madonna who, according to the legend, escaped dishonor when one of the robbers persuaded the other to let the Holy Family proceed on their journey in peace. #  

Giorgione also paid close attention to another element in the biblical account. Chapter 10 of the Book of Judith gives a detailed account of Judith putting on her finery.

There she removed the sackcloth she was wearing and, taking off her widow’s dress, she washed all over, anointed herself with costly perfumes, dressed her hair, wrapped a turban around it and put on the dress she used to wear on joyful occasions when her husband Manasseh was alive. She put sandals on her feet, put on her necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, and all her jewelry, and made herself beautiful enough to catch the eye of every man who saw her.

Judith’s deed is usually seen as an heroic attempt to deliver not just herself but her people from danger. Yet during the Renaissance she was often seen as a prototype of Mary. Perhaps it was this aspect that influenced Giorgione or his patron. Judith’s prayer (9:11) sounds very similar to Mary’s famous Magnificat. 

Your strength does not lie in numbers,

Nor your might in violent men;

Since you are the God of the humble, 

The help of the oppressed, 

The support of the weak,

The refuge of the forsaken,

The savior of the despairing.

The Book of Judith is still included in Catholic bibles today, but it was rejected by Protestants. Nevertheless, the story remained popular after the Reformation and paintings of the subject by Artemesia Gentileschi and Caravaggio are famous although far more graphic than Giorgione’s version.

###

Note 1: This post originally appeared on Giorgione et al... on 4/17/2011. Later, on 11/16/2014, I discussed a depiction of Judith on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, a Giorgione/Titian collaboration. In that fresco the identity of the helmeted soldier can also be found in the Book of Judith. 

Note 2: J.C. comments. Thank you for sharing your latest Giorgione post. It might be useful to include a reference to Donatello's bronze David. The exposed thigh and how Judith holds the sword and stands on the head of Holofernes is similar to Donatello' s David's pose.  A new female hero with the attendant weaker physical force overcoming a greater physical force.

---

* Anderson, Jaynie: Giorgione, 1997.p. 292. According to Anderson the “Judith” was originally a door panel since there is evidence of a painted over keyhole. 

** Pignatti, Terisio and Pedrocco, Filippo: Giorgione, Rizzoli, NY, p. 52.

*** Eller, Wolfgang: Giorgione Catalog Raisonne, Petersberg, 2007, p. 47.

# My analysis of this painting that is usually called "The Discovery of Paris" can be found elsewhere on this site by using the search box. 

Giorgione's Judith*

Giorgione: Judith with the Head of Holofernes. Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

Although originally given to Raphael, scholars for over a century have agreed that the Hermitage Judith with the Head of Holofernes is an early work by Giorgione. According to recent catalogs, it was a ground-breaking work.

In her 1996 catalog Jaynie Anderson credited Giorgione with the introduction of “the Jewish heroine of the Apocrypha to Venetian painting….” ** Three years later Terisio Pignatti wrote that Giorgione’s Judith introduced “numerous innovations that make the painting fascinating, particularly in the field of iconography... ***  In a 2007 catalog Wolfgang Eller claimed that Giorgione’s figure of Judith “is the first really feminine and the first graceful figure in Venetian art.” #

Characteristically, Giorgione avoided the use of stock or standard iconographical elements. Eller noted that Giorgione’s Judith contains “no optical indication of the events. There is no female servant, no tent, no besieged city, and no waiting figures in the background that illustrate the story.” 

All commentators seem to agree that the most striking element in the painting is the bare leg of Judith.  According to Pignatti, “Giorgione inserts a completely new motif in the garments which reveal the left leg of the woman.” (122)  But they can find no good explanation and fall back on “eroticism” and “sensuality.” Eller regards the bare thigh as highly erotic. 

the raised leg makes an extensive laying bare of the female thigh possible for the painter. In Giorgione’s time, this was considered highly erotic, for a woman to show only her calves was even more daring than a bare bosom. Thus from the aspect of the observer of those times, the depicted figure is identifiable as being erotic. (48)

It would appear, however, that in depicting the “bare thigh” Giorgione was just paying close attention to the biblical account in the Latin Vulgate, the only Bible in use at the time. Chapter 9 of the Book of Judith gives the famous prayer of the Jewish heroine as she prepares for her encounter with the enemy tyrant. Here is verse 2 taken from the Jerusalem Bible.

     Lord, God of my father Simeon,
     You armed him with a sword to take vengeance on the foreigners
     who had undone a virgin's girdle to her shame,
     laid bare her thigh to her confusion,
     violated her womb to her dishonor...

Judith is referring to the story of the rape of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and the sister of Simeon, from the Book of Genesis, 34: 1-3.

Dinah, who was Jacob’s daughter by Leah, went out to visit the women of that region. Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, who was ruler of that region, saw her, carried her off and raped her, and so dishonoured her.

This incident led to the slaughter of the Hivite men after they had been tricked into undergoing circumcision. 

It would appear that Giorgione used an exposed thigh to indicate a woman in danger of sexual assault. In an early work by Giorgione that we only have in a seventeenth century copy by David Teniers, Giorgione used the same motif. He exposed the thigh of another woman in danger of sexual assault. Although the painting is usually called the “Discovery of Paris,” it is actually a depiction of the apocryphal legend of the encounter of the Holy Family with robbers on the flight into Egypt. The young Giorgione had the audacity to depict the bare leg of the Madonna who, according to the legend, escaped dishonor when one of the robbers persuaded the other to let the Holy Family proceed on their journey in peace.  

Giorgione also paid close attention to another element in the biblical account. Chapter 10 of the Book of Judith gives a detailed account of Judith putting on her finery.

There she removed the sackcloth she was wearing and, taking off her widow’s dress, she washed all over, anointed herself with costly perfumes, dressed her hair, wrapped a turban around it and put on the dress she used to wear on joyful occasions when her husband Manasseh was alive. She put sandals on her feet, put on her necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, and all her jewelry, and made herself beautiful enough to catch the eye of every man who saw her.

Judith’s deed is usually seen as an heroic attempt to deliver not just herself but her people from danger. Yet during the Renaissance she was often seen as a prototype of Mary. Perhaps it was this aspect that influenced Giorgione or his patron. Judith’s prayer (9:11) sounds very similar to Mary’s famous Magnificat. 

Your strength does not lie in numbers,

Nor your might in violent men;

Since you are the God of the humble, 

The help of the oppressed, 

The support of the weak,

The refuge of the forsaken,

The savior of the despairing.

The Book of Judith is still included in Catholic bibles today, but it was rejected by Protestants. Nevertheless, the story remained popular after the Reformation and paintings of the subject by Artemesia Gentileschi and Caravaggio are famous although far more graphic than Giorgione’s version.

###

* This post originally appeared on Giorgione et al... on 4/17/2011. Later, on 11/16/2014, I discussed a depiction of Judith on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, a Giorgione/Titian collaboration. In that fresco the identity of the helmeted soldier can also be found in the Book of Judith. Here is a link.

---

** Anderson, Jaynie: Giorgione, 1997.p. 292. According to Anderson the “Judith” was originally a door panel since there is evidence of a painted over keyhole. 

*** Pignatti, Terisio and Pedrocco, Filippo: Giorgione, Rizzoli, NY, p. 52.

# Eller, Wolfgang: Giorgione Catalog Raisonne, Petersberg, 2007, p. 47.

Valentin de Boulogne at the Met

Last week my wife and I finally got to see the Metropolitan Museum’s exhibition, Valentin de Boulogne, Beyond Caravaggio, that closes today after a run of three months.  The Met did a remarkable job of assembling 45 of the 60 extant paintings of this early seventeenth century artist who, like Caravaggio, died at a relatively young age. 

On its website the Met provided this introduction to Valentin:

Although he is not well known to the general public, Valentin has long been admired by those with a passion for Caravaggesque painting. His work was a reference point for the great realists of the 19th century, from Courbet to Manet, and his startlingly vibrant staging of dramatic events and the deep humanity of his figures, who seem touched by a pervasive melancholy, make his work unforgettable.

After viewing the paintings which were beautifully hung in a number of rooms, it would be hard to dispute the Met’s description.  Valentin came on the scene right around the time of Caravaggio’s death and obviously learned from the master.  His paintings, many of a very large size, are startlingly vibrant and dramatic, and full of the humanity of his figures both secular and sacred. 

Like Caravaggio he depicted musicians, tavern goers, gamblers, pick-pockets, and card sharps in action. Nevertheless, most of the paintings in the exhibition showed that Valentin’s patrons still desired sacred subjects, and that some subjects still retained their popularity despite the iconoclasm of the Protestant Reformation, or the reforms of the Council of Trent.

Titian: Denial of Peter
Metropolitan Museum, NY

For example, the exhibition contained more than one painting of the denial of Peter. The Met’s permanent collection features a Titian version of the denial that illustrates continuity as well as development. Titian used the contrast of light and dark long before Caravaggio and Valentin, but did not place the scene among a crowd of disinterested bystanders for dramatic effect.

Valentin de Boulogne: Denial of Peter

In the same way, I found it interesting to compare Valentin’s two versions of Judith, the Jewish heroine, with Giorgione’s version completed a century before. In one version Valentin followed Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi in depicting Judith in the act of beheading Holofernes. However, in another version we see a much less bloody scene with a stately composed Judith calmly standing with the severed head at her side in much the manner of Giorgione.

Valentin de Boulogne: Judith

Valentin de Boulogne: Judith

Giorgione: Judith

Protestant reformers rejected the Book of Judith as apocryphal but the story obviously remained popular in Catholic Rome.  I suspect that Judith’s enduring popularity was not just because she was viewed as a savior of her people from an oppressive tyrant. Looking at these paintings I saw a woman defending her own virtue and chastity. Shakespeare’s Rape of Lucrece was one of the most popular poems of this era for much the same reason. 

Here is a link to an excellent brief video introduction of Valentin and the Met exhibition by Met curator Keith Christiansen. Alternatively, the video can be viewed below.

###

Giorgione, Vasari, and a Judith Fresco.

In his “Lives of the Artists” Giorgio Vasari placed his brief biography of Giorgione right after Leonardo da Vinci’s and ranked the young Venetian master, who died tragically in 1510 at about the age of 34, with the great Florentine master. Even though Vasari visited Venice on at least two occasions, it is hard to determine what Giorgione works he saw with his own two eyes.  But there can be no doubt that he saw Giorgione’s frescoes on the exterior walls of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the center of the German merchant community situated on the Grand Canal near the Rialto bridge.

The Fondaco dei Tedeschi had burned to the ground in 1504, and the Venetian government hastened to rebuild the structure so important to its trade with the North. The new building was finished by 1507, and the young Giorgione was given the commission to decorate the exterior walls. The commission was a sign of Giorgione’s elevated artistic status, and its completion only added to his fame. The Venetian weather eventually did havoc on the Fondaco frescoes but the spectacular figures and colors were still evident when Vasari saw them a little more than three decades after Giorgione’s death.

Although extremely impressed, Vasari confessed that he could not understand the subject or the meaning of much of the work. He concluded that in the Fondaco frescoes, Giorgione

thought only of demonstrating his techniques as a painter by representing various figures according to his own fancy. Indeed, there are no scenes to be found there with any order or representing the deeds of any distinguished person, of either the ancient or the modern world. And I for my part have never been able to understand his figures nor, for all my asking, have I ever found anyone who does. In these frescoes one sees, in various attitudes, a man in one place, a woman standing in another, one figure accompanied by the head of a lion, another by an angel in the guise of a cupid; and heaven knows what it all means. *[274-5]

However, Vasari did identify one figure as the biblical heroine Judith. **

Over the door which leads to the storerooms for the wares, a seated figure of a woman is depicted. She has the head of a dead giant at her feet, as is the custom in representations of Judith; and this head she is raising with a sword, while speaking, at the same time, to a figure in the German habit, who is standing, still further beneath her. What or whom this figure may be intended to represent, I have never been able to determine, unless, indeed, it be meant for a figure of Germany. [275]

Fortunately, we have a print copy of the Judith fresco from a seventeenth century engraving. It shows Judith dressed in the finery described in the biblical account, with her bare leg resting on the head of Holophernes. *** At the bottom left is a half-length figure of an armored warrior who looks up at Judith. Given that the Fondaco was the German center, I suppose it was natural for Vasari to claim that the man in the scene represented Germany. Interestingly, like many art historians since his time, when Vasari has difficulty identifying a figure he gives it an allegorical interpretation.

I believe that the identity of the man in the Judith fresco can be discovered by taking a closer look at the Book of Judith. Whether in Vasari’s time or ours, churchgoers tend to be aware only of the highlights of biblical stories. But even a quick reading of the relatively short Book of Judith shows that a foreign warrior played a key role in the narrative. It is Achior, the leader of a contingent of Ammonite mercenaries serving in the army of Holophernes.

At the outset of the story Holophernes had asked his various lieutenants for information about the Israelites who dared to oppose his army from their mountain fortress of Bethulia. Achior came forward and recounted the history of the Israelites and the many times that their God had delivered them from adversity. He concluded that unless the Israelites had offended their God, it would do no good to attack them. Holophernes was shocked by this impudent prophecy, and had Achior left bound hand and foot near the Israelite walls to fulfill a prophecy of his own.

As for you, Achior, you Ammonite mercenary, who in a rash moment said these words, you shall not see my face again until the day when I have taken my revenge on this brood of fugitives from Egypt….you will not die, until you share their ruin. ****

The Israelites took Achior into their stronghold and treated him well after they heard his account of what had transpired with Holophernes.

The rest of the story was well known during the Renaissance. Although the book of Judith came to be rejected by Protestant scholars, it was very popular in the early Christian church, and its popularity continued right into the Baroque era in Catholic circles. During the Renaissance Judith was often paired with David for both were examples of God using the weak to triumph over the strong. Judith also came to be seen as a prototype of Mary.

However, the little known Achior made one more appearance at the end of the narrative. After Judith brought the head of Holophernes to the Israelite camp, she asked that Achior view the enemy general’s head in a kind of ironic twist to Holophernes’ own prophecy.

“call me Achior the Ammonite for him to see the man who thought so meanly of the House of Israel and recognize this as the man who sent him to us as a man already doomed to die.”…No sooner had he arrived and seen the head of Holophernes held by a member of the people’s assembly than he fell down on his face in a faint. They lifted him up. He then threw himself at the feet of Judith, and prostrate before her exclaimed: 

May you be blessed in all the temples of Judah
And in every nation;
At the sound of your name
Men will be seized with dread….

Subsequently, Achior professed his belief in the God of the Israelites, was circumcised and converted.

Vasari was mistaken in his identification of the warrior on the Judith fresco but there still could be a bit of allegory involved in its placement on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi.  I suspect that the placement of this scene on the Fondaco wall was a sign of the relationship between Venice and the German community in Venice. It is not hard to imagine that Venice was represented there by Judith, and the German community by the foreign Warrior looking up at her.

###

*Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, Volume I, a selection translated by George Bull, Penguin Books, 1968. All selections from Vasari are from these editions. Page numbers are in brackets.

**Vasari attributed this fresco to Giorgione but its location on the Merceria side of the Fondaco would indicate that it was done by Titian. However, I do believe that Giorgione was responsible for the whole iconographic scheme including the cartoons of all the work. In any case, this essay is about Vasari's eyewitness view and interpretation.

*** Judith’s bare leg has been discussed in an earlier post on this site.

**** All biblical quotations are from the Jerusalem Bible.

Renaissance Art Mysteries: Mary and Judith

In my last post I listed my four major interpretive discoveries concerning some of the most famous and mysterious works of the Venetian Renaissance. Although I believe that the name of Giorgione’s “Tempest” should never be changed, it does depict “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt”. Also, his “Three Ages of Man” in the Pitti Palace represents the “Encounter of Jesus with the Rich Young Man”. Titian’s “Sacred and Profane Love” should now be seen as “The Conversion of Mary Magdalen”, and his “Pastoral Concert” could best be understood as Titian’s “Homage to the Deceased Giorgione” utilizing the biblical story of David and Jonathan.

My work on these interpretations has led to a number of other significant discoveries concerning heretofore mysterious or mis-understood paintings. In this post I will list two that have already been discussed on this blog as well as on my site, MyGiorgione.

The first is a painting that is usually called “The Discovery of Paris.” In 1525 Marcantonio Michiel saw this painting in the home of Taddeo Contarini and described it as follows.

The picture on canvas, representing the birth of Paris, in a landscape, with two shepherds standing, was painted by Giorgio di Castelfranco, and is one of his early works. [104]

The editor of Michiel’s notes pointed out that only a fragment of this early Giorgione painting survives but that there does exist a seventeenth century copy by David Teniers. The editor referred to a description in an old manuscript  catalogue.

 A landscape on canvas, in oil, where there are on the one side two shepherds standing; on the ground a child in swaddling-clothes, and on the other side, a half nude woman and an old man, seated, with a flute.

This early Giorgione is a very important painting since Michiel’s description has been almost universally accepted and some eminent scholars have even based elaborate interpretations of the "Tempest" on Giorgione’s apparent awareness and fondness for the legend of Paris. However, Michiel guessed wrong and I believe that Giorgione has actually represented “The Encounter with Robbers on the Fight into Egypt”, a popular apocryphal legend.

In my interpretation the painting takes on new importance since it reinforces my interpretation of the Woman in the “Tempest.” In this painting Giorgione has dared to depict a Madonna with bare leg in danger of sexual assault. A full discussion of this lost Giorgione can be found in my “Tempest” paper or on its own at MyGiorgione.

There is no disagreement about the subject of Giorgione’s “Judith” that now hangs in the Hermitage. The mystery of that painting revolves around the bare leg of the Jewish heroine. Its prominence is striking and to some shocking. No good explanation has so far been offered. However, I believe that I have found the reason for the bare leg in the Book of Judith itself. Just as in “The Encounter with the Robbers” Giorgione uses a bare leg to indicate a woman in danger of sexual assault. In each case they are spared by their trust in God. The essay with biblical text can also be found at MyGiorgione.

###

Giorgione: Judith

Although originally given to Raphael, scholars have for over a century agreed that the Hermitage "Judith with the Head of Holofernes" is an early work by Giorgione. Moreover, they agree that it is a ground-breaking work.

Giorgione: Judith
Hermitage, St. Petersburg
Oil transferred from wood to canvas
144 x68 cm

In 1996 Jaynie Anderson wrote: “With this small picture, Giorgione introduces the Jewish heroine of the Apocrypha to Venetian painting….” (292). Three years later Terisio Pignatti wrote that “Giorgione’s Judith with the Head of Holofernes introduces numerous innovations that make the painting fascinating, particularly in the field of iconography…” (52)

Characteristically, Giorgione avoided the use of stock or standard iconographical elements. In 2007 Wolfgang Eller noted that Giorgione’s painting contains “no optical indication of the events. There is no female servant, no tent, no besieged city, and no waiting figures in the background that illustrate the story.” (47)

All commentators seem to agree that the most striking element in the painting is the bare leg of Judith. According to Terisio Pignati, “Giorgione inserts a completely new motif in the garments which reveal the left leg of the woman.” (122) But they can find no good explanation and fall back on “eroticism” and “sensuality.” According to Wolfgang Eller,

“the raised leg makes an extensive laying bare of the female thigh possible for the painter. In Giorgione’s time, this was considered highly erotic, for a woman to show only her calves was even more daring than a bare bosom. Thus from the aspect of the observer of those times, the depicted figure is identifiable as being erotic.” (48)

It would appear, however, that in depicting the “bare thigh” Giorgione was just paying close attention to the biblical account in the Latin Vulgate, the only Bible in use at the time.

Chapter 9 of the Book of Judith gives the famous prayer of the Jewish heroine as she prepares for her encounter with the enemy tyrant. Here is verse 2 from the Jerusalem Bible.

Lord, God of my father Simeon,You armed him with a sword to take vengeance on the foreignersWho had undone a virgin’s girdle to her shame,Laid bare her thigh to her confusion, violated her womb to her dishonor… 

Judith is referring to the story of the rape of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and the sister of Simeon, from the Book of Genesis, 34: 1-3. 

“Dinah, who was Jacob’s daughter by Leah, went out to visit the women of that region. Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, who was ruler of that region, saw her, carried her off and raped her, and so dishonoured her.”

This incident led to the slaughter of the Hivite men after they had been tricked into undergoing circumcision.

It would appear that Giorgione used an exposed thigh to indicate a woman in danger of sexual assault. In another early work that we only have in a 17th century copy by David Teniers, Giorgione used the same motif. He exposed the thigh of the Madonna in a depiction of the apocryphal encounter with robbers on the flight into Egypt. This copy of the lost Giorgione has for centuries been mis-identified as the “Discovery of Paris,” but in my paper on the “Tempest” I have demonstrated that it should be called the “Encounter with the Robbers on the Flight into Egypt.”

Giorgione also paid close attention to another element in the biblical account. Chapter 10 of the Book of Judith gives a detailed account of Judith putting on her finery.

There she removed the sackcloth she was wearing and, taking off her widow’s dress, she washed all over, anointed herself with costly perfumes, dressed her hair, wrapped a turban around it and put on the dress she used to wear on joyful occasions when her husband Manasseh was alive. She put sandals on her feet, put on her necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, and all her jewelry, and made herself beautiful enough to catch the eye of every man who saw her.

Judith’s deed is usually seen as an heroic attempt to deliver not just herself but her people from danger. Yet during the Renaissance she was often seen as a prototype of Mary. Perhaps it was this aspect that influenced Giorgione or his patron. Judith’s prayer (9:11) sounds very similar to Mary’s famous Magnificat.

Your strength does not lie in numbers,Nor your might in violent men;Since you are the God of the humble,
The help of the oppressed,
The support of the weak,The refuge of the forsaken,The savior of the despairing.

The Book of Judith is still included in Catholic bibles today, but it has been rejected by Protestants. As far as I know it is no longer in the Hebrew canon although the name Judith still retains its popularity.

###

Note: According to Anderson Giorgione’s painting was originally a door panel since there is evidence of a painted over keyhole.

###

Anderson, Jaynie: Giorgione, 1997.

Eller, Wolfgang: Giorgione Catalog Raisonne, Petersberg, 2007.

Pignatti, Terisio and Pedrocco, Filippo: Giorgione, Rizzoli, 1999.