Judith with the Head of Holofernes

This engraving was part of a group of Florentine round and oval prints with secular themes meant to be pasted on cylindrical boxes. These held sweetmeats or toiletries and were exchanged by lovers or given as wedding favors. The prints could have been colored or illuminated and completed with the recipient’s coat of arms before being affixed to boxes, though in the one displayed here the shield hanging on the tree at right remains empty. Holofernes literally lost his head to Judith’s well-timed act of seduction, and she hoists the sword she used to remove it, the blade softly echoing the curve of the printed border.