Ju Dunnit

Giuditta con la testa di Oloferne (c. 1612), Cristofano Allori (1577-1621)


Interesting facts in-terms-of-issues-around this painting, known as Judith with the Head of Holofernes in English: according to Allori’s first biographer Filippo Baldinucci, the severed head is a self-portrait of Allori, the decapitatrix is an ex-girlfriend, Maria di Giovanni Mazzafirri, and the old servant is her mother (from A Face to the World, Laura Cumming, 2009).