Judith with the Head of Holofernes

1615 · Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

religious

Cristofano Allori trained in the school of his father and his grandfather, the leading Florentine Mannerist Agnolo Allori, known as Bronzino. Even if Cristofano may be regarded as an artist who broke with late Mannerist tendencies and went on to become an express proponent of early Baroque reform ideas, he nevertheless continues to borrow certain traits of "Mannerist physiognomy" in order to heighten the effect of a picture. In his most famous painting, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, the extreme contrast between the dark and bearded head of Holofernes and the angelic face of his murderess owes much to the Mannerist school in which he was trained.

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About the Artist

Cristofano Allori

1577 – 1621

Alessandro Allori (1535-1607), Florentine painter, the pupil and adopted son of Bronzino. An early visit to Rome added the influence of late Michelangelo paintings to that of his master's courtly Mannerism. The Pearl Fishers (Studiolo of Francesco I, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, c.1570) is generally considered his masterpiece; playful and full of artifice, it combines nude figures obviously drawn from Michelangelo with Bronzino's svelteness and enamelled colouring. He was one of the last notable exponents of Mannerism, painting in a style that had become outmoded by the time of his death. His son Cristofano (1577-1621) was one of the leading Florentine painters of his period, working in a style that was more naturalistic and Baroque than that of his father. He is remembered primarily for one work, Judith with the Head of Holofernes (c. 1615, Pitti, Florence, and other versions), in which his femme fatale mistress is portrayed as Judith and he has depicted his own features in Holofernes' severed head. In the 18th and 19th centuries it was one of the most famous paintings in Italy. The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford possesses portraits by both Alessandro and Cristofano Allori.

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