Judite e sua criada

Artemisia painted this in Florence around 1618, a few years after a Roman court had heard her testify, under torture with thumbscrews, that her father's colleague had raped her. Here the beheading is already over. Judith and her servant Abra are packing up to leave, the general's head half-hidden in the basket, and the whole scene is caught in one alarmed instant. Judith throws a hand up as if she has heard a sound in the tent behind them. The light comes from a single candle just outside the frame, so their faces and the sword catch fire against the dark while everything else drops away. That trick came from Caravaggio, the Roman painter whose work Artemisia had grown up around. The two women act as a team, Judith's fingers on Abra's shoulder, both turned toward the same threat rather than toward us.