I like art that celebrates famous murderesses, and none perhaps is more famous than Judith. She slaughtered the Assyrian general Holofernes and is the most famous femme fatale in all of art and literature. In my true crime travels, I noticed that the National Gallery in Prague has a new exhibit all about women who overpowered men. It's an interesting theme, the junction of beauty and bloodshed. Judith has always been an irresistible subject, a heroine who saved the city of Bethulia by committing a premeditated murder of a foreign invading general, using sex appeal and his own weapon against him.
Copies of this engraving are in museums all over the world. It was made around 1587 by Hendrick Goltzius and Bartholomaeus Spranger.
I translated the Latin in this old engraving, which says, I think - Let no one put too much confidence in his own strength - you dare! Let no one forget the bitter end of Holofernes. And who cut off the neck of the awful tyrant - Save her memory. Judith must be remembered, Bethulia.
#clews #truecrime #femmefatale #femmesfatales #judith #holofernes #bethulia
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