[6] Judith I shares elements of its composition and symbolism with The Sin by Franz Stuck:[7] the temptation illustrated by the German painter becomes the model for Klimt's femme fatale by suggesting the posture of the disrobed and evanescent body as a focal piece of the canvas, as well as the facial set.

Judith's force originates from the close-up and the solidity of posture, rendered by the orthogonal projection of lines: to the body's verticality (and that of Holofernes') corresponds the horizontal parallels in the lower margin: those of the arm, the shoulders joined by the collier, and finally the hair base.

Notwithstanding the alteration of features, one can recognise Klimt's friend (and, possibly, lover), Viennese socialite Adele Bloch-Bauer, the subject of another two portraits respectively done in 1907 and 1912, and also painted in the Pallas Athena.

In 1903, author and critic Felix Salten describes Judith's expression as one "with a sultry fire in her dark glances, cruelty in the lines of her mouth, and nostrils trembling with passion.

[10] Her disheveled dark green, semi-sheer garment, giving the viewer a view of her nearly bare torso, alludes to the fact that Judith beguiled the general Holofernes before decapitating him.

In its formal qualities, the first version illustrates a heroine with the archetypal features of the bewitching and charming ladies described by symbolist artists and writers such as Wilde, Vasnetsov, Moreau, and others.