Fiction. These paintings were never painted. Images are AI-generated, stories and auctions are invented.

Judith, the Morning After

From the Whatifs Catalogue, the encyclopedia of paintings that never were

This article is fiction. Artemisia Gentileschi never painted this work. The image was generated by AI and the story below, including its discovery and sale, is invented.

Judith, the Morning After is an imagined painting attributed, within the Whatifs fiction, to Artemisia Gentileschi (c. 1625). It belongs to the Whatifs series of works the great masters never painted.

History and rediscovery

After her Judith Slaying Holofernes, Artemisia is said to have painted the heroine the next morning, alone, washing her hands in a basin at dawn. Attributed for three centuries to "a follower of Caravaggio", it was reattributed in 2024 thanks to a signature hidden in the carpet pattern, revealed under raking light.

Sale

Within the fiction, the painting sold for €36,000,000 (2025). Tap the board to replay the imagined bidding. The auction pictured below never took place.

Imagined saleroom (AI-generated photo)
AI-generated photograph of a fictional auction.

See also

Notes

  1. Image generated with AI from a prompt written by Whatifs. No real painting, signature or auction house is reproduced.
  2. Story written for Whatifs. Any resemblance to real discoveries is coincidental.

Hang the painting that never was

A 50 × 60 cm museum-grade print of “Judith, the Morning After”, labelled as a Whatifs creation on the back. 29 €, shipped in Europe.

Prints are coming

They are not on sale yet. Leave your email and we will tell you once, when they are. No payment, no commitment.

Noted. One email when prints are ready, nothing else.

One painting that never was. Every morning in your inbox, free.

You are in. Tomorrow’s painting lands in your inbox.