Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (c. 1517): Art, History and Details

Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist (c. 1517) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Albrecht Altdorfer (German, c. 1480–1538).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Salome's story is described in the biblical Gospels of Mark and Matthew. After dancing for King Herod of Galilee, her new stepfather, she was granted any wish she desired. Influenced by her mother, Herodias, she asked that John the Baptist--who was then imprisoned for condemning Herod and Herodias' marriage--be executed. Here, Salome enacts the most gruesome part of the story, presenting the prophet's head on a platter. In the Renaissance, the story was believed to presage the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and the presentation of the Eucharist during Catholic liturgy. Altdorfer's drawing emphasizes Salome's pride--a dangerous sin--through her elaborate garments, billowing, plumed headdress, and flowing long hair. He articulated these details using black ink highlighted with white gouache on paper darkened with brown wash and a finely pointed pen.

Object facts

• Title: Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist
• Date: c. 1517
• Creator attribution: Albrecht Altdorfer (German, c. 1480–1538)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash and white gouache; framing lines in pen and black ink
• Dimensions: Sheet: 19.1 x 12.6 cm (7 1/2 x 4 15/16 in.); Secondary Support: 20 x 13 cm (7 7/8 x 5 1/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - German
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1948.440

A detail from the museum

The artist colored the paper on this drawing a dark brown in order to emphasize the highlights and shadows created with inks.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art, Henry S. Francis. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/June, 1950. No. 6/pt 1. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978: 115-118.
• Francis, Henry. "A Painting and Drawing by Albrecht Altdorfer." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 37, no. 6 (June 1950): 115-118.
• Winzinger, Franz, and Albrecht Altdorfer. Albrecht Altdorfer Zeichnungen. München: R. Piper & Co, 1952.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.