Judith with the Head of Holofernes

The Old Testament apocryphal Book of Judith recounts the story of a beautiful Israelite widow who saves her town from the approaching Assyrian army. Judith enters the invading camp under the pretense of seducing the commanding general, Holofernes. After drinking too much wine, Holofernes falls asleep, and Judith decapitates him with his own sword. With the help of her maid, she puts his head in a sack and carries it home. The Israelites proceed to defeat the Assyrian army. A popular subject in sixteenth-century Northern Europe, Judith offered a biblical exemplar of a woman who valued piety, virtue, and duty.