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# Judith with the Head of Holofernes
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/iudif-s-otrezannoi-golovoi-oloferna/
- Published: 2024-10-18T06:30:51.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:32:23.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Aristocracy, Art, Mores, People

Judith with the Head of Holofernes. Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1530.

The model for this painting, as for many of Cranach's other works, was Princess Sibylle of Cleves. Cranach had been tutor to her husband, John Frederick, Elector of Saxony.

John Frederick is also portrayed in the picture: it is his head that Judith holds in her hands. Figuratively speaking, he lost his head for love of his princess.

Cranach and the royal couple were bound by years of friendship. When John Frederick's life hung by a thread during his captivity at the hands of Charles V of Habsburg, Cranach begged the Emperor to relent and to commute the execution to imprisonment. More than that, the painter himself remained in the Emperor's captivity together with his charge, and for three years at that.

Soon after the Elector's release from captivity, Cranach died, and John and Sibylle followed him to the grave.