# Judith Beheading Holofernes \(detail\) [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [GENTILESCHI, Artemisia]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on canvas ## Commentary Artemisia's powerful style - totally different to that of her father - is seen at its most characteristic in paintings of Judith and Holofernes, a subject she made her own. Her predilection for the bloodthirsty theme has been related to events in her own life. At the age of 19 she was allegedly raped by Agostino Tassi \(who was eventually acquitted of the charge\) and was tortured during the legal proceedings; thus the fierce intensity with which she depicted a woman decapitating a man has been seen as pictorial 'revenge' for her sufferings. ## Related artworks - [Bathsheba at her Bath]() - [Bathsheba]() - [Birth of St John the Baptist]() - [Clio, the Muse of History]() - [Danaë \(detail\)]() - [Danaë]() - [Jael and Sisera]() - [Judith and Her Maidservant]() - [Judith Beheading Holofernes]() - [Judith Beheading Holofernes]() - [Judith Beheading Holofernes]() - [Mary Magdalen]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()