Gustav Klimt · 1909 · a disputed identity
A woman in motion, fingers turned into claws, a body almost engulfed by ornament and a severed head relegated to the very bottom: Klimt does depict Judith, but constructs an image ambiguous enough to evoke Salome.
Direct answer
The historical title is Judith; “Salome” describes the image’s ambiguity
The 1909 painting was shown at the Internationale Kunstschau Wien under the title Judith. It retained this designation at the 1910 Venice Biennale, where the municipal gallery purchased it. In other words, nothing establishes that Klimt officially named it Salome. The Gustav Klimt Database emphasizes precisely this point.
Why, then, do we see Judith II (Salome) ? Because the figure looks less like the biblical widow who saves her city than a fin-de-siècle dancer: exposed torso, unfocused eyes, restless posture and tense fingers. In Klimt’s time, Oscar Wilde’s Salome had become an emblem of the femme fatale. The two heroines converged visually around dangerous beauty and a severed male head.
The most precise formulation is therefore: Judith II is the historical title, while Salome is an interpretation that has become traditional. The double title does not indicate an error to correct, but the way Klimt deliberately blurs the iconography.
Before looking at the painting
Judith and Salome do not tell the same story
Both are associated with a beheading, but their roles, motives and the heads presented differ. Confusing them erases the distinction between a liberator and a princess used within a narrative of desire and revenge.
Guided reading
Five details that shift the image
Klimt depicts neither banquet, tent nor murder. He compresses the action into a body traversed by tensions. The narrative survives in fragments: a head, hands, a twist and a few flashes of gold.
An absent rather than triumphant face
The eyes seem veiled and the head tilts backward. Judith I almost stared at the viewer; Judith II seems swept away by an inner sensation. This drifting quality permits the “Salome” reading.
An exposed chest without a stable pose
The neckline does not construct a calm nudity. It accompanies the torso’s twist, as if the clothing were slipping during movement. The eroticism is tense rather than monumental.
Fingers transformed into claws
The hands hold neither sword nor platter. Their elongated fingers, bent with almost painful precision, concentrate the violence the narrative no longer shows.
Clothing turned into a vertical current
Triangles, bands, arabesques and patches of color draw the eye downward. Ornament does not decorate the body: it extends and disarticulates it.
Holofernes relegated to the margin
The severed head is low, dark and partly absorbed by patterns. This detail confirms Judith, but its concealment prevents immediate identification and opens up the Salome interpretation.
Two versions, eight years apart
Judith I and Judith II: the same heroine, two forms of power
Klimt does not repeat a formula. Between 1901 and 1909, the frontal, golden body becomes an elongated, mobile and more angular silhouette. The comparison reveals a gradual departure from the Secession’s orderly enchantment.
Judith I: the frontal icon
Judith appears half-length, almost motionless. Her face, shoulders and broad necklace form a stable architecture. Gold transforms the scene into a precious object, while Holofernes’s head barely appears in the lower right corner. The metal frame made by Georg Klimt extends the painting like a piece of goldsmithing.
Judith II: the silhouette in crisis
The figure is caught within a very tall, narrow format. She bends, twists and seems to slide along the canvas. Gold remains but shares the surface with red, black, mauve and more dissonant patterns. Her power is no longer that of a sovereign icon: it becomes impulse, convulsion and movement.
| Element | Judith I, 1901 | Judith II, 1909 | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Posture | Frontal, stable, close to a bust portrait | Oblique, elongated, traversed by twists | From displayed control to bodily tension |
| Gaze | Half-closed eyes, yet directed toward us | Drifting gaze, almost absent | From conscious seduction to ambiguous ecstasy |
| Ornament | Regular golden background, precious object | Fragmented patterns and vertical currents | From icon to disarticulation |
| Holofernes | Discreet but legible head at the lower right | Head even more absorbed into the dark margin | The narrative recedes behind the figure |
| Identity | Judith, already sometimes confused with Salome | Historical Judith, visually plausible Salome | Ambivalence becomes the subject itself |
Fin de siècle
Why does Salome prevail despite the title?
Around 1900, Salome was no longer merely a biblical character. Oscar Wilde’s play, published in French in 1893 and first staged in Paris in 1896, made her a figure of desire, dance and death. Richard Strauss extended this vogue with his opera Salome, premiered in Dresden in 1905. Artists thus had an immediately recognizable type: the dangerous dancer fascinated by a severed head.
Klimt brought Judith closer to this type without officially changing her name. The woman of 1909 has neither the warrior widow’s sword nor the restraint of a civic heroine. Her exposed chest, troubled eyes, the rhythm of her clothing and contracted hands make her resemble a dancer after the climax of movement.
A heroine painted for centuries
What Klimt removes from the Judith tradition
In Baroque versions, tension arises from the gesture, blood, maid or trophy. Klimt retains the erotic charge and severed head but removes almost every marker of action. This radical reduction explains the painting’s modern power.
Artemisia Gentileschi
Judith and Abra act together. Their arms form a visible mechanism; blood and Holofernes’s resistance give the killing its physical weight. In Klimt, this violence passes entirely into fingers and lines.
Judith and Abra
The maid, basket and anxious listening narrate the escape from the tent. The Nasjonalmuseet dates this composition to around 1608–1612, with an uncertain attribution to Orazio Gentileschi and equally uncertain participation by Artemisia. Klimt instead isolates his figure in a world without location.
Fede Galizia
Head, platter, dress and jewels coexist in a legible presentation. Beauty does not erase the narrative’s identity. In Klimt, the head is compressed to the limit of visibility and the finery becomes almost abstract.
Color and material
A palette that is no longer simply “golden”
Judith II belongs to the end of the Golden Period but already announces a more expressive language. Gold does not cover everything: it clashes with black, dark red, orange, violet-pink and cool grays.
Within Klimt’s work
1909: gold fractures and the line becomes sharper
Three paintings help place Judith II. Pallas Athena anticipates the armed heroine, Judith I inaugurates the erotic icon, and Hope II shows how ornament can absorb a body while retaining an existential charge.
Pallas Athena, 1898
Armor, frontal gaze and metal frame: Klimt already transforms an ancient heroine into a modern, cool and sovereign presence.
Judith I, detail, 1901
The necklace closes the neck like a piece of goldsmithing. The face remains fully available to the viewer, unlike Judith II’s inward drift.
Hope II, 1907–1908, reworked before 1914
The pregnant woman’s body merges with clothing and gold while a skull recalls death. Like Judith II, the work combines decorative beauty and threat.
See the two paintings
Judith II: Venice collection, currently on loan in Mestre; Judith I in Vienna
Judith II belongs to Ca’ Pesaro – Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna. For visitors: the work has been on loan to MUVEC – Casa delle Contemporaneità in Mestre since September 21, 2026, for the exhibition “Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka e il corpo nell’arte contemporanea,” running from September 26, 2026, to February 14, 2027. Consult Ca’ Pesaro’s official notice before booking. Its height and narrowness are essential to the experience; on a screen, it is easy to underestimate how the silhouette dominates the viewer.
Judith I is at the Belvedere in Vienna. Seeing it with its frame designed by Gustav and executed in metal by Georg Klimt reveals that the work is also a complete object. Gold is not simply a printed color: it catches light and alters the face’s frontality.
Continue exploring Klimt
Related articles
Verified sources
Museums, scholarly database and work entries
Fondazione MUVE
Official entry for Judith II: date, medium, dimensions, inventory number, location and acquisition in 1910.
View the entry →Gustav Klimt Database
History of the Judith / Salome titles, 1909 presentation, 1910 Biennale and Golden Period context.
Read the dossier →Belvedere Museum
Judith I’s role in the use of gold leaf and the work’s place in Viennese modernism.
Read the analysis →Nasjonalmuseet
Detailed story of Judith, Holofernes and Abra through a composition attributed to the Gentileschis.
View the work →Metropolitan Museum
Iconography of Salome receiving and then presenting John the Baptist’s head in an illuminated manuscript.
View the narrative →Getty Museum
Judith’s story in medieval manuscripts: how an image condenses seduction, beheading and the city’s deliverance.
Read the article →Ca’ Pesaro — current notice: Judith II loan to MUVEC in Mestre, exhibition until February 14, 2027.
Metropolitan Opera — Wilde, the 1893 publication and the opera’s premiere in 1905.
The reproduced works are in the public domain or come from files already associated with Alpha Reproduction’s editorial library. Installation photographs remain credited to their institutions. The complete view of Judith II accompanies the five details described in the text.
Frequently asked questions
Judith II in eight answers
Does Judith II depict Judith or Salome?
The historical title used at the 1909 and 1910 exhibitions is Judith. “Salome” is an interpretation that became common because of the dancer’s posture, eroticism and ambiguity of the severed head.
Whose severed head appears in Judith II?
In the painting’s historical identification, it is Holofernes’s head, the Assyrian general beheaded by Judith. It appears very low and remains partly absorbed into the dark setting.
What is the difference between Judith and Salome?
Judith beheads Holofernes to save her besieged city. Salome dances before Herod, then receives John the Baptist’s head on a platter at Herodias’s request.
When did Klimt paint Judith II?
He painted it in 1909. It was presented that year at the Internationale Kunstschau in Vienna, then at the Venice Biennale in 1910.
Where is Judith II today?
It has belonged to Ca’ Pesaro in Venice since the municipal acquisition in 1910. As of September 27, 2026, it is on loan to MUVEC in Mestre for an exhibition running from September 26, 2026, to February 14, 2027.
Why is Judith II so narrow?
The vertical format emphasizes the body’s elongation and turns the clothing’s patterns into a descending current. This constraint produces a sense of slipping and tension absent from Judith I.
Is Judith I also sometimes called Salome?
Yes, it also prompted this confusion because Klimt emphasizes eroticism and greatly reduces the biblical narrative. However, its title and Holofernes’s head identify it as Judith.
Did Adele Bloch-Bauer pose for Judith?
Identification with Adele Bloch-Bauer is often proposed for Judith I and sometimes for Judith II, based on resemblances. It must remain expressed as a hypothesis rather than a certain fact.
Last editorial and factual verification: September 27, 2026.
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