Salomé

Henri Regnault (1843-1871)

1870

Oil on canvas

63 x 40 1/2 inches (160 x 102.9 cm)

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of George F. Baker, 1916 Accession Number: 16.95

Click on image to enlarge it.

According to the museum website, “Regnault initially represented this Italian model as an African woman, but later enlarged his canvas at the bottom and right and transformed it into a representation of the biblical temptress Salomé. Hair ruffled, clothes in disarray, she has just danced for her stepfather Herod, governor of Judea. The platter and knife allude to her reward: the severed head of John the Baptist. Just months after this picture’s sensational debut at the Salon of 1870, the young Regnault was killed in the Franco-Prussian War. His posthumous fame was such that an outcry arose when the painting left France for America in 1912..”