Tidings

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Artist Jennings Tofel (American, 1891–1959)

Title Tidings

Date 1955

Medium Oil on canvas

Dimensions Overall: 40 x 33 in. (101.6 x 83.8 cm)
Framed: 40 3/4 × 33 3/4 × 1 1/2 in. (103.5 × 85.7 × 3.8 cm)

Credit Line Gift of Arthur & Anne Granick, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University

Accession Number 97.48

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About this Work

In this work, focusing on heroism in the face of evil, Tofel treats the story of Judith, an ancient Israelite heroine who saved her city after it is besieged by the Assyrian general Holofernes. Judith gains entry to Holofernes’s tent, where she gives him a great deal of wine and beheads him with his own sword after he falls asleep. Judith, exhausted, sinks to her knees as she holds Holofernes’s head aloft. The running figure in red is a messenger, his body already leaving the frame of the composition as he sets off to bring the tidings of deliverance to the Israelites.

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Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.

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"Tidings | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2025. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=97.48