1638
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
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 a woman holding a severed head by the hair, while another figure kneels beside her. This is a quick sketch Rubens made to plan a bigger painting. The lines are loose and energetic—you can almost see him moving the chalk. It’s rare to peek at an artist’s first ideas before the final work. Look up *chiaroscuro* to see how Rubens used light and shadow to make his figures 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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