Judith with the Head of Holofernes

Paolo Veronese created the oil-on-canvas painting Judith with the Head of Holofernes between approximately 1575 and 1580. The work entered the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria in 1659. It is currently held by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where it is cataloged under inventory number GG 34.

The painting is held by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where it is recorded under inventory number GG 34. It entered the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria in 1659 and subsequently passed into the museum's holdings, where it remains today.

No exhibition history beyond its documented presence in the Kunsthistorisches Museum collection is recorded in the available sources.

The painting has been frequently cited as an influential treatment of the Judith and Holofernes narrative, shaping later depictions of the heroine's decisive moment of violence. Its composition, particularly the close rendering of Judith's expression and the severed head, informed subsequent Baroque and Rococo artists seeking dramatic tension in biblical scenes. The work's provenance through the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm collection contributed to its visibility in European art circles, reinforcing the motif's popularity in the 17th century.

Contemporary scholarship continues to reference the painting when examining the evolution of gendered power dynamics in visual culture.

Paolo Veronese’s oil painting titled Judith with the Head of Holofernes dates from the late 1570s, roughly between 1575 and 1580. The work is part of the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where it is catalogued under inventory number GG 34.

Veronese’s treatment of the Judith narrative aligns with the period’s fascination with heroic female figures from biblical and classical sources. The work reflects the artist’s penchant for grand, narrative scenes populated by richly dressed figures, a hallmark of Venetian courtly taste in the late sixteenth century.