A standing female figurine dressed in classical robes and headdress looking to the right with her head and gaze tilted upwards. Her right arm is forward of her body and, in this hand, she holds a sword which is pointing down to the ground slightly behind her. In her left hand, which is down at her side, she holds the decapitated head of a bearded man, Holofernes, by his hair.

A sketch model of Judith, one of three Old Testament figures proposed by Alfred Stevens for the decoration of the dome in St Paul’s Cathedral, London (it was intended to go in one of the niches around the Whispering Gallery beneath the great dome). Between 1862 and 1865, Stevens was commissioned to produce designs for the proposed redecoration of St Paul’s, a project that did not, in the end, come to fruition.