painting
Judith
Jan Massijs
About this work
Object details
- TitleJudith
- Datec. 1554
- Mediumoil on panel
- Measurements115 × 80 cm
- Inventory number5076
- Inscriptionslower left (sword): IOANNES MASIIS PING
More about this work
An apocryphal story and very popular subject in Western European painting is that of Judith and Holofernes. The latter is a general serving the King of Assyria who lays siege to Bethulia, where Judith lives. In order to save her city Judith goes to the enemy camp, seduces Holofernes, gets him drunk and beheads him as soon as she gets the chance. In the painting she has just chopped off his head with the large sword she is holding. On the left is the army camp, where panic breaks out after the discovery of his body. In the end the soldiers flee and Bethulia is saved.
Not a lot is known about the Jan Massijs. Because of his connections to a heretical group he was prosecuted for Lutheranism and banished from Antwerp in 1544. He had his most productive period after his return in 1555, at a time when he was influenced by the artists of the School of Fontainebleau, which is why it is thought that he passed his exile in France as well as Italy (Genoa possibly).
Judith has to be dated after Massijs’s return to Antwerp. Although it was formerly placed between 1560 and 1565 on stylistic grounds, the technical research carried out by Maria Galassi, among others, suggests that it must have been painted a little earlier. The dendrochronological analysis shows that the earliest possible date is 1548, but it is likelier that it was made after 1554 . The technique also points to the 1650s. For example, there is a clear imprimatura that was applied with broad, rapid brushstrokes. No such layer has yet been found in Massijs’s paintings from the 1560s, but it is present in a work of 1552, a Madonna and Child in the Galleria di Palazzo Bianco in Genoa. Judith also lacks a clear underdrawing, while many works from after 1559 have one done in a wet medium that was applied with occasionally broad brushstrokes.
Judith may have been one of the earliest pictures that Massijs made after returning to Antwerp. There is an echo of the School of Fontainebleau in Judith’s sophisticated, enticing elegance. Although she has just committed a murder, she seems emotionless and radiates a delicate air of sensuality, with a gossamer-thin transparent veil revealing her slender frame and small, high breasts. Her wonderful skin has an almost ivory-like smoothness. The Bible says that Judith donned her most beautiful clothes for her daring adventure, but Massijs took the opportunity to paint a favourite Renaissance subject: the nude body.
Before the painting was conserved in 2015-2021, the scene was masked by thick, yellowed varnish layers and large areas of overpainting. Their removal revealed not only numerous details, as in the view to the distance on the left, but also the original orange colour of the sash around Judith’s waist. The presence of arsenic there indicates the use of the pigment orpiment and/or realgar, which is more orange. The present pale blue of Judith’s drapery was undoubtedly more intense originally. There is cobalt throughout that zone, indicating that the blue pigment smalt was used. Its degradation, which is also present in the sky, has led to the loss of the blue, as it were. Cobalt was also found in Judith’s veil, specifically in the decorative border along the opening, which is now brown, so it seems that it was originally decorated with blue details.
References
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