Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist
Guido Reni·c. 1639–42
Historical Context
Guido Reni's Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist, painted around 1639-42, is a late work by the Bolognese master who was considered the greatest Italian painter of his generation. The subject of Salome receiving the Baptist's severed head combined female beauty with religious drama in a way that fascinated Baroque audiences. Reni's late style, characterized by an increasingly pale, ethereal palette and simplified forms, gives this violent subject an almost otherworldly serenity.
Technical Analysis
Reni's late oil technique employs a remarkably light, silvery palette with thin, translucent paint application that creates an almost luminous, dematerialized effect. The simplified composition focuses attention on the contrast between Salome's idealised beauty and the macabre offering of the Baptist's head.
Provenance
Cardinal Girolamo Colonna (died 1666), Palazzo Colonna, Rome, by 1647 [Colonna collection inventory, 1647, no. 169; see Safarik 1996 for this and the following]; by descent in the Colonna family, until at least 1783 [Colonna collection inventory, 1783, no. 174]. Earl of Darnley, Cobham Hall, Kent, England, by 1812 [Graves 1912, no. 62]; by descent to Iva Francis Walter Bligh, 8th Earl of Darnley (died 1927); sold, Sotheby's, London, July 22-23, 1957, lot 318, to "Nash" for £100. George Wildenstein, London and New York, by March 1958 [record of phone conversation between Ay Wang Hsia, Wildenstein and Company, and Art Institute, April 4 and April 18, 1990, in curatorial object file.]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1960.
_(after)_-_The_Holy_Trinity_adored_by_Angels_-_WA1940.1.35_-_Ashmolean_Museum.jpg&width=600)
