Master of the Mansi Magdalen, 'Judith and the Infant Hercules', possibly about 1530

A biblical heroine, Judith, stands beside a mythological hero, Hercules, depicted as an infant; though seemingly unrelated, both are examples of fortitude. Judith, a Jewish widow, is shown holding the head of Holofernes, an Assyrian general. According to the apocryphal Book of Judith, while the Assyrians were besieging her city of Bethulia, Judith put on her finery and went to the enemy camp. When Holofernes invited her to his tent and tried to seduce her, she took advantage of his drunken stupor and beheaded him with his own sword. She carried his head home in triumph, and it was hung from city walls. On the right, the infant Hercules strangles two serpents sent by the jealous goddess Juno to kill him.

According to classical and Renaissance authors, courageous deeds were more impressive if performed by weak or undistinguished persons, such as women or children. Here the painter shows a woman and a child, both naked to stress their vulnerability.

The figure of Judith seems to be based on woodcuts by Lucas Cranach the Elder, and the idea of showing nude figures against a black sky could have been suggested by the paintings of Cranach or Albrecht Dürer. The Master of the Mansi Magdalen was a follower of Quinten Massys but also copied from Dürer’s engravings and woodcuts, and borrowed from prints by other artists, including Cranach, Albrecht Altdorfer and Marcantonio Raimondi. The style of this picture seems consistent with that of the ‘Mansi Magdalen’ (Staatliche Mueseun, Berlin) itself and the related Salvator Mundi (Philadelphia Museum of Art). All three may have been produced around 1530.