1931
35x25 cm
ANSELMO BUCCI
(Fossombrone, 1887 ~ Monza, 1955)
Judith and Holofernes (1931)
Oil on panel, 35×25 cm
Autographed signature and title on the reverse
Handwritten writing with personal autograph message: “Sleep and don't go to Monza. I'll stay at home for breakfast. Wake me up at 9.”
Provenance: Marco Fossati collection (Eredi Bucci)
In the Bible, more precisely in the Book of Judith, composed of 16 chapters describing the story of the Jewish Judith, set in the time of Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 BC), "king of the Assyrians" [sic]. The Jewish city of Bethulia is under siege by Holofernes, an Assyrian general, and is liberated thanks to Judith.
One night Judith got ready, got dressed and, very beautiful, went together with a servant to Holofernes' tent, bringing with her some gifts and pretending to want to betray her people and hand them over to the enemy. Holofernes believed her, invited her to her banquet, drank and got drunk. He invited her to her rooms and Giuditta waited for the right moment to kill him by cutting off his head with two blows of the scimitar. After killing him, she put his head in the food basket and returned, victorious, to her people. Judith is, among biblical figures, a symbol of virtue and devotion to God.
Anselmo Bucci finds a protagonist, Giuditta, who he played in 1927, transfiguring her in her modernity: the woman, naked, sitting at the bedside where the modern Holofernes lies (Bucci himself?) appears in the act of deciding what the future of his companion, even if the knife he wields suggests a bloody ending.
It is difficult, however, to interpret the "Bucci thought" in this case, without his further indications: a plausible hypothesis is that it is a personal episode interpreted and dedicated to his relationship with a woman (through the title) with the usual biting irony; this eventuality could somehow connect the work to the message written on the reverse, of which however we do not know the recipient; it remains a fact that the person for whom Bucci wrote the message was certainly a woman, just as it is equally certain that she received a message written on the reverse of a painting entitled Judith and Holofernes...
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