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Your gallerySalome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist
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Notice how Salome turns her eyes away from the head she holds, then look at the page’s legs and the dark background, left only thinly painted.
Salome lifts John the Baptist’s head by the hair from the platter a kneeling page holds up, her reward for dancing for her stepfather, Herod. The Art Institute of Chicago calls Reni the most celebrated and successful painter in Italy in his time. This late canvas was never finished, and its thin, transparent paint and pale colors show how he worked in his last years.
Oil on canvas · 248.5 × 174 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Renaissance · Baroque
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist
- Artist
- Guido Reni (Italian, 1575–1642)
- Date
- c. 1639–42
- 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.)
- Credit line
- Louise B. and Frank H. Woods Purchase Fund
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.