Judith

The biblical heroine is depicted in an elegant, twisting pose with robes that flow around her body. She holds the head of Holofernes aloft as a trophy, while the background shows his military camp and the distant city of Bethulia on a cliff. Small figures near a tent in the background discover the general's decapitated body.

This engraving by Hendrick Goltzius reflects the Haarlem Mannerist interest in the 'Power of Women' topos and the triumph of virtue over tyranny. In the intellectual circles of the late 16th-century Netherlands, Judith was frequently invoked as an allegory for civic and spiritual liberty overcoming carnal or political oppression.