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Salome receiving the head of Saint John the Baptist

Maker

Attributed to
(artist)
1593-1678

Title

Date of Production

after 1617-1619

Medium

black and red chalk with stumping on laid paper, with an added strip at upper edge and with black ink framing lines, laid down on a historic mount

Dimensions

Height: 42.7 cm
Width: 18.9 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.3736

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Notes

The drawing is a copy after the inside left wing of a triptych painted by Peter Paul Rubens for the church of Saint John in Mechelen, modern-day Belgium, commissioned on 27 December 1616 and completed in the following years. This composition, derived from the Bible, shows Salome who has beheaded John the Baptist, and blood is still gushing out of the saint’s headless neck; the executioner is placing the lifeless head on a platter, held up by Salome and the servant. The latter pinches the saint’s tongue that had once spoken out against the king, precipitating his downfall. Behind them a soldier watches the scene.

Provenance

Dr Carl Robert Rudolf, London (1884-1974), L.2811b; possibly acquired in America by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), n.d.; Witt Bequest 1952

Literature

Blunt, Anthony, Hand-list of the drawings in the Witt Collection, London, 1956
p. 127

Inscriptions

Watermark: unable to check due to mount.

Collector's mark: Witt’s mount (removed, now missing, recorded in file): Carl Robert Rudolf (L.2811b).

Inscription: Mount (historic), Verso: upper left corner, red ink: "N9"; upper centre, brown ink: "79"; lower right, graphite, circled: "4". Witt’s mount (removed, now missing, recorded in file), Verso: “copy aft Rubens Malins KdK. P165”.

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