Herod's Birthday Feast by Edward Armitage. 1868. 155 x 277 cm. Oil on canvas. Collection: Guildhall Art Gallery, London (no. 587). Presented by the artist, 1894. Reproduced courtesy of the City of London Corporation. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Whether or not this the dancer is Salome performing the dance of seven veils in order to secure the beheading of John the Baptist, any image of dancing in the presence of Herod brings to mind the extraordinarily popular fin-de-siecle subject of Salome, the epitome the sexual, destroying woman for the Decadents of the '90s and those influenced by them. This well-covered dancer strikes one as the opposite of the nude woman who appears in Pierre Bonnaud’s Salome or in Oscar Wilde’s play and Beardsley's illustrations for it.
Related Discussions
- Salome in the Fin de Siècle imagination
- The Biblical Story of Salome
- Salome: a woman’s point of view
- Salome: Wilde and Beardsley
Representations of Salome
- Aubrey Breadsley, The Stomach Dance (illustration)
- Aubrey Breadsley, John and Salome (illustration)
- Sir Edgar Bertram Mackennal's Salome (sculpture)
- Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer's Salome (pastel)
- Frederick Lord Leighton's Salome Dancing (in Japanese collection — study)
- J. Markham Skipworth's Salome (oil on canvas))
Created 12 February 2015