1540
oil
panel
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Judith is a 1540 oil by Jan Sanders van Hemessen, a Mannerism work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
A strong woman holds a sword in one hand and a man’s severed head in the other. She stands naked, muscles tense, looking down at what she’s done. This isn’t a delicate saint—it’s Judith, who tricked and killed an enemy general to save her people. The artist shows her power, but also her bare body, as if strength and sex can’t be separated. It’s a mix of respect and unease, painted in the 1500s when women’s boldness made men nervous. To see how other artists handled Judith’s story, look up *chiaroscuro*—the way light and shadow make her look even more real.
Jan Sanders van Hemessen portrayed the Jewish heroine Judith as a muscular nude to be both admired and feared. When the Assyrian army threatened Judith’s people, the handsome widow saved them from slaughter by infiltrating the tent of the enemy general, Holofernes, to win his confidence and then behead him. Van Hemessen’s life-size interpretation reflects contemporary male ambivalence toward female agency. It celebrates Judith’s physical and moral strength but also foregrounds the sexuality that enabled her triumph, reproducing for viewers the aggressive beauty that caused her adversary’s…
Marie Catherine d’Onyn de Chastre (née Baronne de Herckenrode) (1731–1824); sold, Douarière d’Onyn de Chastre (née Baronne de Herckenrode), Leuven, Belgium, June 10, 1825, lot 129, to Désiré van den Schrieck (1785–1857), Leuven, Belgium. With Robert Lebel, Paris, by 1956; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1956.
Kansas City, MO, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Visiting Masterpiece: Jan Sanders van Hemessen, Judith, September 24, 2019-October 30, 2020.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Jan Sanders van Hemessen (c. 1500 – c. 1566) was a leading Flemish Renaissance painter, belonging to the group of Italianizing Flemish painters called the Romanists, who were influenced by Italian Renaissance painting.…
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