Goitrous beauty in Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith and her Maidservant

Goiter in portraits of Judith the Jewish heroine

Judith was a legendary Hebrew heroine who beheaded the general Holofernes and saved the children of Israel from destruction by the Assyrian army. In the Book of Judith, which is still present in the Catholic and Orthodox Christian Bibles, Judith is presented as an illustrious woman who defeated the enemy using her virtue and fortitude. The present investigation has revealed 24 portraits in which Judith has been depicted with variable grades of thyroid gland enlargement on the scene where she decapitates Holofernes. There is no doubt that the integration of a slight thyroid enlargement in the paintings is a stylistic hallmark that portrays an idealized female beauty with a balanced neck and graceful body. The large extended goiter was probably depicted by the artists as a symbol of a powerful masculine body and her courage, and at the same time, it probably also reflects better anatomic accuracy and knowledge of artists from that period.

Goiter in paintings by Rogier van der Weyden (1399-1464)

Figures affected by goiter were only sparsely depicted by Peter Paul Rubens and Albrecht Dürer among Flemish artists, because obvious goiter was not common in regions such as the Netherlands and Belgium. However, the recent observation of two figures with a goiter elegantly depicted by Rogier van der Weyden has raised our interest in this topic. When taking a close look at the paintings of this Flemish Renaissance painter, it is interesting to note that 16 portrayed subjects show an abnormal profile of the neck with swelling, suggestive of a presumptive medico-artistic diagnosis of goiter. Van der Weyden travelled to Italy where he soon acquired great fame and was second only to the other Flemish painter of the time, Jan Van Eyck. It is very likely that in Italy he had the opportunity to look at several female figures depicted with goiter, which may have influenced his paintings. Van der Weyden was appreciated because of his style to mix realistic details with idealized softened features to increase the beauty and appeal of his models. It is also likely that the integration of the goiter may have been part of the Renaissance tendency toward a more realistic and precise representation of subjects. The fact that in almost all cases the goiter was a low-to-moderate grade enlargement of the thyroid may confirm our speculation that perhaps the painter used the same model or the template derived from one model for subsequent paintings.