c. 1500
(German, c. 1440–1503)
Engraving
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.)
John L. Severance Fund 1952.79
Catalogue raisonné: B VI.206.9; Lehrs IX.297.367; Hollstein XXIV.244.367; TIB 6
State: IV/IV
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.
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