Judith mit dem Kopf des Holofernes

This depiction of Judith with the head of Holofernes, dated around 1525, treats the Old Testament subject of the Jewish heroine who saved her people by beheading the Assyrian general. Sebastiano's treatment reflects the Roman taste for dramatic, monumental figure compositions. His figures carry Venetian sensuous richness combined with the overwhelming physical presence that Michelangelo's influence brought to his Roman works. Sebastiano del Piombo, born Sebastiano Luciani in Venice around 1485 and active in Rome from 1511 until his death in 1547, occupied one of the most interesting positions in sixteenth-century Italian painting: trained in the Venetian tradition under Giorgione and influenced by the young Titian, he subsequently became the closest collaborator of Michelangelo in Rome, receiving figure compositions from the great Florentine that he executed with his Venetian command of color and atmosphere. The resulting fusion — Venetian surface and Roman form — was his most distinctive contribution to the tradition. His appointment as keeper of the Papal Seal (Piombo) in 1531 brought him financial security but somewhat reduced his artistic output in the final decades of his career.

The painting demonstrates Sebastiano's mature synthesis of Venetian color and Michelangelesque form, with the heroine rendered as a powerful, monumental figure holding the gruesome trophy.