Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist (c. 1639–42): Artwork and History

Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist (c. 1639–42) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Guido Reni (Italian, 1575–1642).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

This painting depicts Salome as she receives the head of John the Baptist on a platter, the gruesome reward she chose for having pleased her stepfather, Herod, by performing a seductive dance. This episode from the New Testament had long been popular in Italian art, thanks to its combination of religiosity, violence, and eroticism. The most famous and successful Italian painter of his day, Guido Reni worked in Rome and then in Bologna, where his highly refined style and intensely spiritual subjects dominated. Despite its horrific subject matter, this unfinished work displays the graceful movement, delicate colors, and transparent paint application of Reni’s late style.

Object facts

• Title: Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist
• Date: c. 1639–42
• Artist attribution: Guido Reni (Italian, 1575–1642)
• Place of origin: Italy
• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 248.5 × 174 cm (97 3/4 × 68 1/2 in.); Framed: 285 × 210.2 × 8.9 cm (112 3/16 × 82 3/4 × 3 1/2 in.)
• Type: Painting
• Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
• Reference number: 1960.3

Collection credit

Louise B. and Frank H. Woods Purchase Fund

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.