Focus on this artwork and explain the Description and style.
Like Mantegna's other Judith and Holofernes and a c. 1491 drawing of the same subject in the Gabinetto dei disegni e delle stampe in Florence, Judith and her handmaid stand before the triangular tent of Holofernes. He was decapitated by Judith, who is holding in her hands a sword and placing his head in a sack held by her handmaid.
The painting uses tones of grey and white highlights, enriched in some places with brown brushstrokes, that accentuate the relief and the painting's illusionistic quality. The whole of the tent is left in shadow with some details emerging from the darkness, like the foot of Holofernes on the bed. The background is mottled like a fake marble. The passages of the drapery and the elegant play of lines in the flag at right, which twists with the wind around itself and the flagpole, are particularly skillful. The difficulty of painting on linen, almost without ground, does not permit corrections or pentimenti.
Gabinetto dei disegni e delle stampe ground pentimenti Judith and Holofernes Holofernes Judith