European Painting and Sculpture

LUCAS CRANACH THE ELDER
(German, 1472-1553)

Herodias, about 1530
Oil on panel
Gift of the Museum Collectors 1968.26
Conservation funded by E. Frederick Zopp, Honorary Consul of The Federal Republic of Germany, with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

According to the New Testament book of Mark, Herodias was the wife of King Herod Antipas and the mother of the beautiful young Salome. When John the Baptist criticized Herodias for marrying her husband’s brother, the outraged queen had the saint imprisoned. For revenge, she and her daughter then conspired to have John decapitated. One evening Salome danced for Herod at a banquet; the King was so pleased that he offered to grant her any wish. At her mother’s urging, Salome requested the head of John the Baptist.

This painting, once thought to be a portrait of an unknown 16th-century woman, actually depicts Herodias holding the decapitated head of Saint John the Baptist. At some point in the painting’s history, the subject must have been considered too gory, for the panel was cut down and the inscription at the top and the remaining wisps of John’s hair at the bottom were painted out. In its original format, the painting probably would have shown a three-quarter-length figure of Herodias presenting the viewer with the head of Saint John.

Cranach painted similar subjects, including Salome with the head of Saint John and the Old Testament heroine Judith with the severed head of Holofernes, several times. However, the Speed’s painting appears to be Cranach’s only known version of Herodias.