The Return of Judith to Bethulia

This is a small panel, and an early one. Botticelli was still in his twenties, not yet the painter of the great mythologies, when he made it around 1470. Most artists who took up the story of Judith chose the violent moment, the beheading of the Assyrian general Holofernes in his tent. Botticelli chose the walk home. Judith crosses a wide morning landscape back toward her besieged town of Bethulia, an olive branch in one hand and her sword still in the other, while her maidservant follows behind, balancing the general's head in a basket on her head. The two women move quickly, their gowns and hair blown forward. It was painted as one of a pair, and its companion panel shows what they left behind, the soldiers discovering the headless body.