Judith and Holofernes

In 1716 Venice was at war with the Ottoman Empire over the Morea, the Peloponnese, and that year Antonio Vivaldi set to music an oratorio for the city, Juditha triumphans, on a libretto by Giacomo Cassetti. In its allegory Judith stood for Venice and Holofernes for the sultan, Ahmed III. Giovanni Battista Piazzetta kept coming back to the heroine, and the museum dates this canvas to around 1717 to 1720, though not every scholar agrees.

He chose the moment just before the blow. A curtain opens like the curtain of a stage, and light from outside falls mainly on Judith, shown as a refined lady of rank. Holofernes lies asleep, overcome by the wine of the banquet. She is alone, without the old servant who usually goes with her, and instead of fierce concentration she looks upward, troubled. The darkest passages are left less finished, as though drowned in brown shadow, so much so that some critics have wondered whether Piazzetta ever completed it.

Cardinal Neri Maria Corsini bought the picture from the painter himself for 133 scudi, and by 1750 it hung in a reception room of the family palace on Via della Lungara.