Museum of Art
Artist: Unknown Artist (Italian, -)
Medium: pen and dark brown ink, brown wash on paper
Dimensions: 3 1/4 in. x 5 3/16 in. (8.26 cm. x 13.18 cm.)
Credit Line: Bequest of the Honorable James Bowdoin III
Accession Number: 1811.90
- "Achior"
Type: inscription
Location: bottom center
Materials: pen and dark brown ink
- James Bowdoin III( Collector, Boston) - 1811.
- Bowdoin College Museum of Art( Museum, Brunswick, Maine) 1811- . Bequest
- Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
- Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 5/17/1985 - 7/7/1985)
- Clark Art Institute. ( 9/14/1985 - 10/27/1985)
- University of Kansas. ( 1/19/1986 - 3/2/1986)
- Art Gallery of Ontario. ( 5/17/1986 - 6/29/1986)
The small format, sketchiness, and narrative nature of this sheet indicate that it was preparatory to a book illustration or other print, but none has yet been found. A different moment in the story was depicted in essentially the same composition by the so-called Master of the Liechtenstein Adoration (repr. Master Drawings, vol. 3, no. I [1965], pls. 38-39). The story of Achior and Holofernes is related in the apocryphal Book of Judith 5:1—14:10.
Commentary credited to David P. Becker (or not otherwise captioned) appeared in his catalogue Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College (Brunswick: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 1985).