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Salome

1870
Not on view

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 Salome. 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.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Salome
  • Artist: Henri Regnault (French, Paris 1843–1871 Buzenval)
  • Date: 1870
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 63 x 40 1/2 in. (160 x 102.9 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Gift of George F. Baker, 1916
  • Object Number: 16.95
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

More Artwork

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Head Study for "The Entombment of Christ", Henri Regnault French, Graphite
Head Study for "The Entombment of Christ"
Henri Regnault
Dedicatee Juliette Reiset
Inscriber Henri Victor Regnault
1864
Ceramic Horn, Glazed pottery, French
Ceramic Horn
French
late 18th or early 19th century
Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, Marie Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818) and Marie Marguerite Carraux de Rosemond (1765–1788), Adélaïde Labille-Guiard French, Oil on canvas
Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, Marie Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818) and Marie Marguerite Carraux de Rosemond (1765–1788)
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard
1785
Gondolier, Henri Regnault French, Watercolor, pen and brown ink, and graphite
Gondolier
Henri Regnault
ca. 1868
Édouard Manet, Seated, Holding His Hat, Edgar Degas French, Graphite and black chalk
Édouard Manet, Seated, Holding His Hat
Edgar Degas
Sitter Edouard Manet
ca. 1868

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