Masterpiece by Fede Galizia acquired by National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

20 September 2024

A painting by the 17th-century artist Fede Galizia has been acquired by the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo.

A previously unrecorded painting by Fede Galizia, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, has been acquired by the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. It is a work of the artist's maturity, and of a subject she returned to more often than any other.

Galizia worked in Milan and was the daughter of the miniaturist Nunzio Galizia, who most likely gave her her first training. She was known in her lifetime for finely worked portraits and religious pictures, and above all for still life, at a period when very few women sustained a professional career as painters.

Judith held a particular place in her work. The story drew artists and writers in every age, and in the decades after Trent the figure became something close to an icon. Galizia painted her at least five times, among them the versions in the Ringling Museum, Sarasota, and the Galleria Borghese, Rome.