Judith beheading Holofernes

Attributed to Louis Finson · PD

Judith beheading Holofernes


Details

Year
1607
Medium
oil paint
Type
painting
Dimensions
140 × 160 cm

The story

When Caravaggio fled Naples in June 1607, on the run from a death sentence in Rome, he left two paintings behind in a studio he shared with two northern artists, Louis Finson and Abraham Vinck. One was a Judith beheading Holofernes. Finson, a Flemish painter who had fallen under Caravaggio's spell, made this copy from it, catching the older man's harsh light and the shock on Judith's face as she saws through the general's neck. The Caravaggio original then vanished for centuries, until in 2014 a painting that many experts believe is the lost canvas turned up in an attic in Toulouse.