Judith and Her Maidservant

Correggio's Judith and Her Maidservant from around 1510 depicts the Jewish heroine who saved her people by beheading the Assyrian general Holofernes. This early work shows Correggio engaging with a dramatic narrative subject that was popular throughout Renaissance Italy Oil on canvas, increasingly preferred over panel in the sixteenth century, offered greater flexibility for large-scale compositions It is now held at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg, one of France's leading regional museu

The developing sfumato and warm palette show the young Correggio moving toward his mature style, with the dramatic subject rendered with the atmospheric subtlety that would become his hallmark.