Judiths Rückkehr nach Bethulia

A young widow walks lightly across the hills with a sword in one hand and an olive branch in the other. Behind her, her maid carries the head of the enemy general. Botticelli fit this whole triumph into a panel only 31 by 24 cm.

The story behind the painting

This small tempera panel shows an episode from the Book of Judith. To save the Jewish people from the Assyrian army, the young and beautiful widow Judith killed their general Holofernes. Here she returns home to Bethulia after the deed. Scholars agree it is an early work by Botticelli but disagree on the date. Comparison with the face of his Fortitude, commissioned in 1470, points to the end of the 1460s or early 1470s; likenesses to Antonio del Pollaiolo lead many to around 1470 or 1472, while Sergio Bettini placed it in 1467 to 1468 and saw the influence of Mantegna. Wikidata gives 1470.

What to look for

Judith wears rich clothes, decked with bracelets and chains, as the sacred text describes her garments of gladness. Her right hand holds the sword that cut off Holofernes's head; her left carries an olive branch, a token of peace. She moves swiftly across the open hillside. Her faithful maid Abra follows with a bottle of wine and a cruse of oil in one hand, and the head of Holofernes in a sack balanced on her own head. Far below, by a broad river, stand the walls and gates of the city, and armed horsemen ride out to meet her. Notice the two faces: Judith's long neck and wistful eyes, and Abra's eager gaze fixed on her mistress.

Meaning and intent

Botticelli does not paint a fierce victor. Judith's face, very like his Fortitude, carries an expression of gentle sadness, in striking contrast with the intent, devoted look of the servant who risked danger and death beside her. The olive branch beside the sword turns the scene from slaughter toward deliverance and peace. The panel has a pendant, The Discovery of the Body of Holofernes, which shows the other side of the same night: the general lying headless in his bed while his men stand amazed. Together the two little pictures tell one story from two points of view.

Legacy

Raffaelle Borghini described both panels in his Riposo: they had belonged to Ridolfo Sirigatti, who gave them to Grand Duchess Bianca Cappello de' Medici when he heard she wished to adorn a writing cabinet with pictures and antique statues. They passed to Antonio de' Medici and appear from 1587 to 1632 in the inventory of the Casino Mediceo di San Marco, joined in one walnut frame as a diptych, then entered the Uffizi in 1632. An earlier, slightly smaller version of about 1468 to 1469 is in the Cincinnati Museum of Art, and late in life Botticelli returned to the theme in Judith Leaving the Tent of Holofernes, now in the Rijksmuseum.