ERRÓ GUÐMUNDUR GUÐMUNDSSON, dit (Né à Ólafsvík-Islande... Lot n° 13

JUDITH ET HOLOPHERNE Oil on canvas Signed on the back and titled on the frame 80 x 100 cm Reproduced under number 840, page 258, in black and white in the catalogue raisonné Volume III, Éditions Hazan, Paris 1988. Written around the 2nd century BC, Judith's book in the Bible tells the story of a young widow who liberated her city of Bethulia in Israel, besieged by the Assyrians, seducing and decapitating their general Holofernes, asleep drunk after a banquet. This text has inspired artists since the Middle Ages. Judith then symbolized fidelity, chastity and the triumphant continence of pride and lust. It was reactivated in the Renaissance by Cranach and Giorgione, with a particular echo in Florence, where it was seen as an image of the Republicans' victory over the enemies of the public good. Mantegna, Botticelli, Donatello and Giovanni della Robbia have represented Judith. More recently, it was Erró who took inspiration from it. Erró is an internationally renowned artist, and was the subject of a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in 2010 "Erró cinquante ans de collages".