| Maker(s): | Spruance, Benton
| | Culture: | American (1904-1967)
| | Title: | Judith: Vanity of Victory, from the series Vanity II
| | Date Made: | 1950
| | Type: | Print
| | Materials: | Color lithograph on paper
| | Place Made: | North America; United States
| | Measurements: | Sheet: 22 7/8 in x 16 3/16 in; 58.1 cm x 41.1 cm; Image: 19 1/8 in x 13 1/2 in; 48.6 cm x 34.3 cm
| | Narrative Inscription: | SIGNATURE/DATE: recto, lwr.r. (graphite: Spruance 50; TITLE: recto, lwr.ctr. (graphite): Judith; INSCRIPTION: recto, lwr.l. (graphite): 23/40; INSCRIPTION: recto, lwr.ctr. (graphite): 33/4; INSCRIPTION: recto, lwr.r.cor. (graphite): 20x26; INSCRIPTION: recto, upp.r. (graphite): 3; INSCRIPTION: recto, ctr.r. (graphite): 3
| | Accession Number: | MH 1973.260.I(b).RII
| | Credit Line: | Gift of Winifred Glover Spruance (Class of 1925) (wife of the artist)
| | Museum Collection: | Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
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Description:
Part of Vanity II series; Vanity of Victory, Edition:100; view of woman holding up severed head of man in her right hand, she uses other hand to cover the side of her face with her red and white headscarf, she wears red ad pink clothing, a boy stands in the viewer's lower left holding out a green container
Label Text:
She went up to the bedpost near Holofernes’s head, and took down his sword that hung there. She came close to his bed, took hold of the hair of his head, and said: “Give me strength today, O Lord God of Israel!” Then she struck his neck twice with all her might, and cut off his head. (Book of Judith 13:6-8)
So goes the story of the biblical heroine Judith, who used her beauty to seduce and slay the powerful enemy of the Israelites, Holofernes. The theme of the female seducer-assassin appears multiple times in both the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, and became an increasingly popular artistic subject in the 15th and 16th centuries. The depiction of Judith and Holofernes, by the Florentine painter Mirabello Cavalori, shows the young Judith turning away from the viewer to place the severed head in the bag offered by her maid. This almost gentle gesture and the demure way she gathers up her skirts belie the brutality of the act she just committed. The painting downplays both the violence and sexuality of Judith and instead emphasizes her role as heroine by including a view of Bethulia in the background—the city which Judith has just saved from Holofernes’s army.
This painting is joined by a 20th-century print by the American artist Benton Spruance of the same subject. Spruance focuses his composition on Judith, whose substantial form dwarfs that of her handmaiden. She holds the severed head high in victory, a gesture which seems to contradict her mournful expression and the modest way she turns to hide her face. Spruance revisited biblical subjects frequently throughout his career.
(2016)
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=MH+1973.260.I%28b%29.RII |
