Judith and Holofernes

With cunning and courage, the Old Testament heroine succeeded in entering the camp of Holofernes outside the city of Bethulia. There she put an end to the threat his troops posed by decapitating the enemy general. Cranach’s large workshop created all of the known half-length versions of Judith around the year 1530. This striking concentration was apparently related to the founding of the Schmalkaldic League at that time: Judith became the symbolic figure of Protestant resistance to the armies of Charles V.