The Dance at the Court of Herod (c. 1500): Art, History and Details

The Dance at the Court of Herod (c. 1500) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Israhel van Meckenem (German, c. 1440–1503).

The work and its context

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

In this imaginative composition, Meckenem combines John the Baptist’s beheading with a courtly promenade. The religious narrative’s gruesome episodes occur in the background, where Salome collects the saint’s severed head on a platter and then presents it at Herod’s banquet table. Salome appears a third time in the foreground, where she dances with a lusty suitor who grabs her waist instead of politely holding her hand.

Object facts

• Title: The Dance at the Court of Herod
• Date: c. 1500
• Creator attribution: Israhel van Meckenem (German, c. 1440–1503)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Image: 21.5 x 31.5 cm (8 7/16 x 12 3/8 in.); Sheet: 21.5 x 31.5 cm (8 7/16 x 12 3/8 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1952.79

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• "New in the Galleries.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 57, no. 3 (May/June 2017): Back cover.

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.