Judith in Prayer

Caravaggio's Judith, painted in Rome about 30 years before this one, shows the blade already cutting into Holofernes' neck. Jacques Stella, working in the same city in 1631, chose the moment before. In the Book of Judith, the young widow stands beside the bed of the drunken Assyrian general and prays for strength before she takes down his sword. Here she kneels with her face turned up toward a break of light in the clouds, while the general sleeps behind the curtains. The sword is still in its scabbard, and three little winged boys are tugging it about like a toy. Stella painted on a slab of dark stone and let its black stand for the night inside the tent. The curtains, and the plumed helmet and shield set aside by the bed, are picked out in fine strokes of gold.