Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist

The Artist: Born in Milan around 1465, Andrea Solario came from a family of well-known sculptors and architects. His great-grandfather, Marco Solari, was one of the principal architects at the Duomo in Milan during the second half of the fourteenth century. Andrea had four brothers—Alberto, Giacomo, Pietro, and Cristoforo—all of whom also worked in the “family business” (Brown 1987). The most successful of them was Cristoforo, frequently referred to as “il Gobbo” (the hunchbacked), who specialized in marble sculpture (for an example of Cristoforo's work, see his Saint Catherine of Alexandria (2012.328). Andrea and Cristoforo were closely associated, with Andrea accompanying his elder brother to Venice between about 1490 and 1495. In Venice, Andrea encountered the innovations of Giovanni Bellini and Antonello da Messina, exposing him also to Netherlandish influences.

It was likely upon his return to Milan around 1495 that Andrea came into meaningful contact with the work of Leonardo da Vinci, who lived there from 1482–99 and 1506–13. Andrea produced an admired fresco copy of the Last Supper for the hieronymite convent at Castellazzo, which was later detached and displayed near Leonardo’s original in Santa Maria delle Grazie before being destroyed in World War II. In Milan, the years around 1500 were marked by political instability and violence: the French conquest of 1499–1500 produced a period of tremendous upheaval to which local artists responded in different ways. The collapse of the Sforza state disrupted established systems of court patronage, and many artists fled the city to seek safety and professional security. Andrea, however, remained in Milan and found work for French patrons, including the city’s new governor Charles d’Amboise. Between 1506 and 1509/10, Andrea traveled to northern France to work for Charles’s powerful uncle, Cardinal Georges d’Amboise, at his palace in Gaillon. It was here that Andrea probably produced The Met’s Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist, which he signed in the lower righthand corner. It has often been observed that Andrea’s sojourn in France preceded Leonardo’s by nearly a decade, making Andrea a key conduit in the transmission and circulation of Italian pictorial modes north of the Alps.

The Painting: The painting illustrates a biblical episode from the Gospels, told by both Matthew and Mark. Queen Herodias of Judaea begrudges Saint John the Baptist for declaring her marriage to King Herod unlawful. At a banquet, Herodias’s daughter, Salome, dances to entertain Herod and his guests, enchanting the King so thoroughly that he asks Salome to name any reward for her performance. At her mother’s direction, Salome requests the head of Saint John the Baptist. Herod orders a soldier to execute the saint and deliver his head to Salome, which she then presents to Herodias.

Andrea’s interpretation zeroes in on one moment from this narrative—the transfer of the severed head to Salome—and distills the scene to its essential elements. A faceless executioner, who appears only as an outstretched arm, suspends John’s head over a silver charger held by Salome. She looks on with an expression of remarkable calmness, emphasizing the contrast between innocence and horror, between the beautiful and the gruesome.

Andrea made several versions of this popular iconography. A closely related painting can be found in Turin (Galleria Sabauda), with a third version in Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum) that was probably executed later. A fourth painting in Paris (Musée du Louvre), signed and dated 1507 by Andrea in the lower right corner, strips away everything from the story except for the head of Saint John the Baptist on a pedestal dish. For this painting, Andrea made a highly finished preparatory drawing of the head in chalk and ink, which also survives in the Louvre’s collection.

Patron, Style, Date: The Met’s Salome can be dated between 1507 and 1509, when Andrea worked for Cardinal Georges d’Amboise at his chateau in Gaillon, Normandy. Though Georges d'Amboise was likely the painting's patron, there is no conclusive evidence for this. Georges d’Amboise was a powerful and influential figure: beyond his religious authority, he operated within the highest echelons of French political power, serving as a minister and close adviser to the French king, Louis XII. Between 1497 and his death in 1510, the Cardinal undertook a complete redevelopment of his residence in Gaillon, a project for which he brought together artists, architects, and artworks from both Italy and France. Surviving records of monthly payments made to Andrea at Gaillon establish a date range for the artist’s French sojourn; they also show that he was remunerated at a level three to four times higher than other painters working at the castle (Suida 1945). In Normandy, Andrea not only produced works on panel and paper, but also a series of frescoes in the chapel that depicted Georges d’Amboise alongside members of his illustrious family. Unfortunately, these frescoes were destroyed during the French Revolution, together with most of the palace complex (for an example of the chapel’s surviving furnishings, see these wooden panels made under the supervision of Nicolas Castille (41.190.493b).

Andrea’s Salome draws stylistic inspiration from several sources. It is worth emphasizing again Andrea’s proximity to sculpture and sculptural practices through his family. Archival evidence shows that, while in Milan, Andrea operated out of the Solari workshop near San Babila, where he appears to have been the only painter. It has frequently been pointed out that Andrea’s paintings from the first decade of the sixteenth century are replete with sculptural references—not only in their relief-like quality, with figures and objects that emerge sharply from dark backgrounds, but also in their specific citations of sculptures by Andrea’s brother, Cristoforo, as well as other Lombard sculptors.

The Salome also demonstrates Andrea’s familiarity with Netherlandish painting and its interest in reflections and descriptive surfaces (note the mirroring of Salome’s ornate dress along the border of the silver dish). Andrea no doubt came into contact with Northern painting and drawing during his time in Venice in the early 1490s, but it is equally possible that he had already encountered these traditions prior to leaving Milan. Netherlandish techniques and styles circulated in the Sforza milieu via artists such as Zanetto Bugatto, a court portraitist regularly employed by the Sforza, who trained in the workshop of Rogier van der Weyden between 1460 and 1463.

Looking at a painting like the Salome, the lessons Andrea learned from Leonardo da Vinci are also evident: for example, the modeling of the figures using delicate transitions from light to shadow. The composition itself may derive from a lost prototype by Leonardo, either painted or drawn, as attested by the numerous versions of this invention by other Leonardesque painters like Giampietrino and Bernardino Luini.

“Caput Johannis in Disco” The Fourth Crusade, which culminated in 1204 with the Sack of Constantinople, brought many relics associated with the Saint John the Baptist into both northern and southern Europe, carried by soldiers, clergymen, and nobles returning from the eastern Mediterranean. Arguably the most important of these was the skull relic presented to the bishop of Amiens Cathedral in December 1206 by a French canon named Wallon de Sarton. According to the legend of the relic's discovery, Wallon had found two skulls on silver platters in the Church of Saint George of Mangana in Constantinople. One belonged to Saint John the Baptist—identifiable, so the story goes, by an inscription on the platter. A variety of material evidence attests to the enormous popularity of the devotional cult that flourished around the Baptist's skull relic at Amiens. The relic, which was thought to offer relief for a wide variety of conditions including epilepsy, muteness, and depression, attracted throngs of pilgrims seeking relief for their ailments. It is worth noting that, by 1507, Cardinal Georges d'Amboise was nearing the end of his life and suffering from chronic illness, which could help explain why he would have commissioned a painting like The Met’s Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist from Andrea Solario in the years leading up to 1510. Images of Saint John the Baptist and his life functioned as “traditional [images] of healing power.” (Baert 2012)

At Amiens, the skull relic was contained in a reliquary that took the form of a metal platter inlaid with precious stones. Since neither the Bible nor later parascriptural texts comment on the appearance or materiality of Salome’s charger, the reliquary’s form—a metal dish—may have alluded to the thirteenth-century “invention” or discovery of the skull on a silver dish in Constantinople. Andrea's Salome, which shows the titular female accepting the head of Saint John the Baptist on a silver platter, could, in turn, point to the reliquary at Amiens. The original platter on which Salome was thought to have received the head of the Baptist was traditionally identified with an agate dish at Genoa. Like Amiens, Genoa served as an important site of John the Baptist veneration. The Baptist's ashes had come to Genoa in 1098 and they, like the dish, generated a devotional following. Baert observes that the unusual stone parapet in The Met’s Salome evokes the visual properties of red-brown agate, in particular its color and patterning. Thus, Andrea's painting alludes to two key sites of Saint John the Baptist veneration: Amiens, where the devoted could encounter the skull-relic in its sumptuous metal reliquary, and Genoa, where they could encounter the agate dish-relic.

Caitlin Miller 2023

Inscription: Signed (lower right): ·ANDREAS·DE· / ·SOLARIO· / ·F·

?Monsieur Nogaret (until 1782 and 1807; his sale, J. B. P. Le Brun, Paris, March 18, 1782, no. 1, to Henry; his sale, Paris, April 6, 1807, no. 77, for 1000 livres); ?Josephine Bonaparte, Empress of France, Malmaison; [Férréol de Bonnemaison, Paris, 1806–8; sold to Oldenburg]; Peter Friedrich Ludwig von Oldenburg, Grand Duke of Oldenburg, Oldenburg (1808–d. 1829); Grand Dukes of Oldenburg, Oldenburg (1829–1900; cats., 1888; 1890, no. 47); Friedrich August von Oldenburg, Grand Duke of Oldenburg, Oldenburg (1900–at least 1912; cats., 1902, no. 47; 1906; 1912); [F. Steinmeyer, Lucerne, until 1923; sold to Kleinberger]; [Kleinberger, New York, 1923; sold to Friedsam]; Michael Friedsam, New York (1923–d. 1931)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Michael Friedsam Collection," November 15, 1932–April 9, 1933, no catalogue.

Cremona. Museo Civico Ala Ponzone. "Pittori della realtà: le ragioni di una rivoluzione da Foppa e Leonardo a Caravaggio e Ceruti," February 14–May 2, 2004, unnumbered cat. (p. 94).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Painters of Reality: The Legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy," May 27–August 15, 2004, no. 8.

LOAN OF THIS WORK IS RESTRICTED.

G. Parthey. Deutscher Bildersaal. Vol. 2, L–Z. Berlin, 1864, p. 563, no. 2 (under Solario), attributes it to Solario; as in the Oldenburg collection.

Alfred Woltmann and Karl Woermann. Geschichte der Malerei. Vol. 2, Die Malerei der Renaissance. Leipzig, 1882, p. 566.

Wilhelm Bode. Die grossherzogliche Gemälde-Galerie zu Oldenburg. Vienna, 1888, pp. 13–14, ill. (engraving), as "Herodias"; dates it between 1503 and 1507; states that it was acquired from Bonnemaison in Paris in 1808 and that it supposedly came from Malmaison; notes the popularity of the composition.

[F. K. von Alten]. Verzeichniss der Gemälde, Gypse und Bronzen in der grossherzoglichen Sammlung zu Oldenburg. Oldenburg, 1890, p. 22, no. 47, gives the date acquired by Bonnemaison as 1806.

Ivan Lermolieff [Giovanni Morelli]. Kunstkritische Studien über italienische Malerei. Vol. 2, Die Galerien zu München und Dresden. Leipzig, 1891, p. 117 n. 1, p. 360, no. 25 [English ed., "Italian Painters: Critical Studies of their Works," vol. 2, "The Galleries of Munich and Dresden," trans. Constance Jocelyn Ffoulkes, London, 1893, p. 90 n. 1, p. 279, no. 25], calls it a Flemish copy after Solario.

Herbert F. Cook in Catalogue of Pictures by Masters of the Milanese and Allied Schools of Lombardy. Exh. cat., Burlington Fine Arts Club. London, 1898, p. lxiii, calls it a Flemish copy after the painting at Sion House [see Notes].

Gustav Pauli. "Ausstellung von Gemälden der lombardischen Schule im Burlington Fine Arts Club." Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, n.s., 10 (1898–99), p. 148, fig. 8, as "Herodias"; attributes it to Solario, rejecting Morelli's [see Ref. 1891] and Cook's [see Ref. 1898] identification of the picture as a Flemish copy.

Kurzes Verzeichnis der Gemälde, Gips-Abgüsse und Bronze-Nachbildungen der grossherzoglichen Sammlung im Augusteum zu Oldenburg. Oldenburg, 1902, pp. IV, 7, no. 47.

F. Schmidt-Degener in Die grossherzogliche Gemaelde-Galerie im Augusteum zu Oldenburg. Oldenburg, 1906, p. 6, ill., compares it with a related work by Bernardino Luini (Musée du Louvre, Paris); notes the influence of Antonello da Messina and Leonardo da Vinci.

Bernhard Berenson. North Italian Painters of the Renaissance. New York, 1907, p. 294, tentatively attributes it to Solario.

Tancred Borenius, ed. A History of Painting in North Italy: Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Ferrara, Milan, Friuli, Brescia, from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century.. By J[oseph]. A[rcher]. Crowe and G[iovanni]. B[attista]. Cavalcaselle. 2nd ed. [1st ed. 1871]. London, 1912, vol. 2, p. 382 n. 3, mentions it among three versions of the composition by Solario: this one in the Augusteum at Oldenburg, and others in the Northumberland and Nemes collections.

Karl Schaefer. Führer durch die grossherzogliche Gemälde-Galerie im Augusteum zu Oldenburg. Oldenburg, 1912, p. 39, ill. opp. p. 38, dates it about 1510; notes the influence of Leonardo and of Flemish painting.

Tancred Borenius. "The Venetian School in the Grand-Ducal Collection, Oldenburg." Burlington Magazine 23 (April 1913), p. 25.

Kurt Badt. Andrea Solario: Sein Leben und seine Werke. Leipzig, 1914, pp. 205, 217, pl. IX, calls it a repetition of the Northumberland version, which he dates about 1506.

Wilhelm Suida. "Leonardo da Vinci und seine Schule in Mailand." Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft 13 (1920), pp. 30–31, 35, dates it between 1507 and 1509.

Salomon Reinach. Répertoire de peintures du moyen age et de la renaissance (1280–1580). Vol. 5, Paris, 1922, p. 467, ill. (engraving), calls the Northumberland and Nemes versions replicas.

Wilhelm Suida. "Eine Ausstellung lombardischer Malerei der Renaissance." Belvedere 3 (1923), p. 201, calls the version in the Gualino collection, Turin, a studio repetition after the MMA work.

Lionello Venturi. La collezione Gualino. Turin, 1926, unpaginated, under pl. XXXI, ill., calls it a copy after the painting in the Gualino collection, which he attributes to Solario.

Wilhelm Suida. "Die Sammlung Gualino in Turin." Der Cicerone 19 (1927), p. 694, disagrees with Venturi.

Bernard Berenson in The Michael Friedsam Collection. [completed 1928], pp. 87–88, attributes both this picture and the Northumberland version to Solario and dates them toward the end of the artist's time in France (1507–9); believes that the composition is based on a work by Leonardo.

Wilhelm Suida. Leonardo und sein Kreis. Munich, 1929, pp. 200, 292, calls the Gualino picture a variant of this work.

André de Hevesy. "Les élèves de Léonard de Vinci: Andrea Solario." Gazette des beaux-arts, 6th ser., 4 (1930), p. 181, calls it a Flemish copy and identifies the version in the Northumberland collection as the original by Solario.

Wilhelm Suida. "Eine Zeichnung des Andrea Solario in der Albertina." Belvedere 10 (1931), p. 34.

Bernhard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Oxford, 1932, p. 542, lists it as by Solario.

Bryson Burroughs and Harry B. Wehle. "The Michael Friedsam Collection: Paintings." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27, section 2 (November 1932), p. 38, no. 64, believe that the various versions of the subject are based on a lost drawing or painting by Leonardo.

Bernhard Berenson. Pitture italiane del rinascimento. Milan, 1936, p. 465, erroneously lists it as in Brooklyn.

W[ilhelm]. Suida in Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. Ed. Hans Vollmer. Vol. 31, Leipzig, 1937, p. 223.

Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, p. 141, ill.

Nanette B. Rodney. "Salome." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 11 (March 1953), p. 197, ill. p. 196.

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 91.

Luisa Cogliati Arano. Andrea Solario. 2nd ed. Milan, 1966, pp. 42, 74–75, 84, no. 30, fig. 84, attributes the MMA, Northumberland, and Gualino versions to Solario, dating the MMA and Northumberland pictures about 1510 and the Gualino work possibly earlier; suggests the influence of Lucas Cranach the Elder.

Bernard Berenson. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools. London, 1968, vol. 1, p. 411; vol. 3, pl. 1433.

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 190, 417, 607.

Mercedes Precerutti-Garberi in Capolavori d'arte lombarda: i leonardeschi ai raggi "x". Exh. cat., Castello Sforzesco. Milan, 1972, p. 120.

Claus Virch. Letter to Elizabeth Gardner. August 7, 1973, calls it "the original and certainly the finest of several versions, some of which may be copies".

Old Master Paintings: Recent Acquisitions. Exh. cat., Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd. London, 1978, p. 26, under no. 34, erroneously mentions it as still in the Oldenburg collection.

Clovis Whitfield. Discoveries from the Cinquecento. Exh. cat., Colnaghi. [New York], 1982, p. 62, under no. 30.

Sylvie Béguin in Andrea Solario en France. Paris, 1985, pp. 16, 46.

Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, North Italian School. New York, 1986, pp. 60–61, pl. 30, state that the Northumberland version may also be autograph, but that the quality of the MMA work is superior and that it is certainly the prototype; date it about 1510–14, after Solario's return from France to Milan; note the presence of pentimenti.

David Alan Brown. Andrea Solario. Milan, 1987, pp. 13, 15, 19, 165, 167, 171, 184, 191, 198–99 nn. 76, 79, 82, p. 203 n. 164, pp. 205, 207–8, 217, 279, no. 40, figs. 124 (color), 125–26 (details), dates it before Solario's departure for France in 1507; calls it the primary version of the composition, and considers the Northumberland and Nemes paintings to be copies; believes that it was probably the picture included in the Nogaret sale in 1782.

Kerstin Merkel. Salome: Ikonographie im Wandel. PhD diss., Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz. Frankfurt, 1990, p. 341, no. 381, fig. 247, dates it to the first quarter of the sixteenth century.

Paul Joannides. "Titian's 'Judith' and its Context: The Iconography of Decapitation." Apollo 135 (March 1992), p. 167, fig. 9, dates it about 1507.

Maria Teresa Binaghi Olivari. "Partita doppia milanese per Tiziano." Venezia arti 8 (1994), p. 37, agrees with Brown's [see Ref. 1987] dating and attribution of the versions.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 102, ill.

David Alan Brown in The Dictionary of Art. Ed. Jane Turner. Vol. 29, New York, 1996, p. 25.

Jaynie Anderson. Giorgione: The Painter of "Poetic Brevity". Paris, 1997, p. 207 [French ed., 1996].

Laura Pagnotta. Bartolomeo Veneto: l'opera completa. Florence, 1997, p. 103, dates it to the end of the first decade of the sixteenth century.

Paola Venturelli. "I gioielli di Salomè." Achademia Leonardi Vinci 10 (1997), pp. 202, 204 n. 21, fig. 3 (color), dates it 1505–6.

David Alan Brown in The Legacy of Leonardo: Painters in Lombardy 1490–1530. Milan, 1998, pp. 243–44, fig. 123.

Eleonora Bairati. Salomè: immagini di un mito. Nuoro, 1998, p. 120, dates it about 1506.

Francesco Frangi in Pittura a Milano: rinascimento e manierismo. Ed. Mina Gregori. Milan, 1998, pp. 224–25, colorpl. 51.

Victoria S. Reed. "Rogier van der Weyden's 'Saint John Triptych' for Miraflores and a Reconsideration of Salome." Oud Holland 115, no. 1 (2001–2002), p. 14 n. 47, dates it about 1507.

Victoria S. Reed. "Piety and Virtue: Images of Salome with the Head of John the Baptist in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance." PhD diss., Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., 2002, pp. 160–61, 163, 579, no. 466, fig. 103.

Andrea Bayer. "North of the Apennines: Sixteenth-Century Italian Painting in Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 60 (Spring 2003), pp. 14–16, fig. 8 (color), ill. p. 6 (color detail), dates it probably about 1506–7.

Andrea Bayer in Painters of Reality: The Legacy of Leonardo and Caravaggio in Lombardy. Ed. Andrea Bayer. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2004, p. 81, no. 8, ill. (color) [Italian ed., "Pittori della realtà: le ragioni di una rivoluzione da Foppa e Leonardo a Caravaggio e Ceruti," (Milan), pp. 94–95, ill. (color, overall and detail)].

Barbara Baert. Caput Johannis in Disco: Essay on a Man's Head. Leiden, 2012, pp. 207–8, fig. 112 (color, cropped), dates the painting to 1506 and tentatively identifies the stone of the parapet as red-brown agate, connecting this with the "precious stone that is associated with Salome's platter as preserved in Genoa".

Old Master & British Paintings: Day Sale. Christie's, London. July 9, 2014, p. 54, under no 134.

Andrea Bayer. "Collecting North Italian Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art." A Market for Merchant Princes: Collecting Italian Renaissance Paintings in America. Ed. Inge Reist. University Park, Pa., 2015, pp. 94–95, 124 n. 34.

Sebastian Schütze. Caravaggio: The Complete Works. Cologne, 2015, p. 26, ill. (color, cropped).

Malve Anna Falk in Die Gemäldegalerie Oldenburg: Eine europäische Altmeistersammlung. Ed. Sebastian Dohe et al. Oldenburg, 2017, pp. 54, 65 n. 57, p. 118, no. 47, ill. pp. 67, 119 (color, overall and detail), and on cover.

Sebastian Dohe in Die Gemäldegalerie Oldenburg: Eine europäische Altmeistersammlung. Ed. Sebastian Dohe et al. Oldenburg, 2017, pp. 21, 47 n. 336.

Barbara Baert. "Wandering Heads, Wandering Media. Framing the Head of Saint John the Baptist between Sculpture and Painting." Decapitation and Sacrifice, Saint John's Head in Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Text, Object, Medium. Ed. Barbara Baert and Sophia Rochmes. Leuven, 2017, pp. 215, 220–21, fig. 13 (color, cropped), dates the painting to 1506 and draws parallels between the "severed" arm of the executioner and severed head of Saint John the Baptist.

Victoria S. Reed. "Decapitation, Devotion, and Desire in Titian's 'Salome'." Artibus et Historiae no. 79 (2019), p. 95, fig. 4 (color).

Giovanni Renzi in Andrea Solario: Pittore del Rinascimento tra Italia e Francia. Ed. Lavinia Galli and Antonio Mazzotta. Exh. cat., Museo Poldi Pezzoli. Milan, 2025, pp. 185–89, 264, fig. 15.3 (color).

A second signed version of the composition was formerly in the collection of the Dukes of Northumberland, Sion House (private collection, Switzerland, in 1987). Another version was formerly in the Von Nemes collection, Budapest, and was most recently sold at Sotheby's, New York, January 15, 1993, no. 153, as Studio of Andrea Solario. A variant was formerly in the Gualino collection, Turin, and is now in the Galleria Sabauda, Turin.

The principal version of a related composition by Solario is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

There are versions of a similar composition by Bernardino Luini in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Borromeo collection, Isola Bella.

Loan of this work is restricted.