BARTOLOMEO LITTERINI, attributed

JUDITH WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES

BARTOLOMEO LITTERINI
Venice, 1669 – 1748, Venice

Oil on canvas
107 × 77 cm / 42.1 × 30.3 in, without frame

PROVENANCE: Bergamo, private collection

The story of Judith occupied a privileged place within Venetian and North Italian painting of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, offering artists an opportunity to unite theatrical drama, moral virtue and aristocratic elegance within a single image. While earlier interpretations often emphasized brutality and divine justice, later treatments increasingly transformed Judith into a refined and emotionally charged heroine, poised between sacred narrative and worldly sophistication.

The present composition appears closely related to this later Venetian tradition and may plausibly be attributed to Bartolomeo Litterini (1669–1748), one of the more distinctive yet still relatively understudied painters active in Venice during the late Baroque period.

The son and pupil of the painter Agostino Litterini, Bartolomeo inherited his father’s workshop and initially worked within an artistic language shaped by inherited models and ecclesiastical commissions. Yet during the first decades of the eighteenth century his style evolved toward a more lyrical and narrative mode, likely informed by the artistic vocabulary of Gregorio Lazzarini, Sebastiano Ricci and Antonio Balestra. Religious painting remained central to his career, although occasional secular compositions reveal his sensitivity to theatrical gesture and refined decorative effect.

In the present Judith with the Head of Holofernes, the heroine no longer appears merely as the severe instrument of divine vengeance. Instead, Judith acquires an unmistakably aristocratic and almost portrait-like presence. Her delicately individualized features, elegant drapery and carefully staged gesture transform the biblical narrative into something more psychologically nuanced and visually sophisticated. The dramatic event becomes inseparable from the language of Venetian elegance.

Particularly striking is the painting’s balance between theatricality and restraint — a quality frequently encountered in Venetian religious painting of the early eighteenth century. Judith stands not simply as a triumphant biblical heroine, but as a protagonist within an emotionally orchestrated scene, where gesture, costume and expression carry as much significance as the narrative itself.

Given that the painting originates from a private collection in Bergamo, it is tempting to suggest a dating after circa 1715, during the period when Bartolomeo Litterini was working in the Bergamo region in connection with the sculptor Andrea Fantoni, producing numerous paintings for churches of the surrounding territory. While such a hypothesis remains cautious, the geographical provenance of the present work makes this possibility particularly compelling.

The author wishes to express heartfelt gratitude to Alberto Crispo and Enrico Guzzo for their generous assistance in the attribution of the painting and in helping establish its authorship.