1638
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Feast of Herod (recto); Tomyris with the Head of Cyrus (verso) is a 1638 by Peter Paul Rubens, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see two quick sketches on one sheet: a king recoiling from a platter holding a severed head, and a queen holding another head by the hair. Rubens drew these to plan a big painting. The lines are loose, like he’s thinking out loud. You can almost see him change his mind—Herod’s arm moves between strokes. Look up *chiaroscuro* to see how artists use light and shadow to make scenes feel alive.
Peter Paul Rubens had a large studio in Antwerp and used drawing to prepare for large paintings as well as to direct the many pupils who assisted him. Striking in its immediacy, the drawing on the recto of this sheet of paper is a preparatory study for the Feast of Herod painting now at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. Herod, wearing a large cap and wrapped in a mantle, shrinks back in horror as Salome uncovers a charger that holds the head of Saint John the Baptist. Smiling, Herodias grabs the platter with her left hand and, in a chilling detail, gestures toward the charger with a…
The two stories that Rubens depicted on the front and back of this sheet of paper each feature a gruesome death, the result of revenge at the hands of a powerful woman.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ROO-bənz; Dutch: ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat.
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