Judith and Holofernes (Vernet)

Judith and Holofernes is an oil on canvas painting by Horace Vernet, from 1830. He was then director of the Académie de France à Rome^[1][2][3] It shows Judith just before beheading Holofernes. Since 22 December 1912 it has been in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau.^[4]

Judith and Holofernes (1830) by Horace Vernet

Study of Olympe Pélissier as Judith, 1830 (Boston Museum of Fine Arts).

History

Two models sat for the work; Olympe Pélissier for Judith and Federico Ricci as Holofernes.^[1][2] Vernet produced two studies - a nude bust of Pélissier and a study of two figures together, with Judith seducing and in contact with Holofernes, unlike the finished work.^[5]

It was first exhibited at the 1831 Paris salon, where it was noted by the art critics Étienne-Jean Delécluze, Charles Blanc and Heinrich Heine.^[2] It influenced the chapter "Sous la tente" in Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô, A Woman's Vengeance in Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's Les Diaboliques and Friedrich Hebbel's play Judith.^[2]

It was bought by the Direction des Musées Royaux,^[4] and placed on display at the Musée du Luxembourg before the end of that year. It was moved to the Château de Saint-Cloud in 1835.^[4] It was later assigned to the Department of Paintings in the Louvre, before being deposited in its present home.

A copy of the work by a painter called "Rouede" or "Rouche", who eventually became a pupil of Vernet, was rediscovered in the 1990s around dustbins by an inhabitant of Toulouse.^[6]