Salome at the Prison

When John the Baptist criticized the marriage of King Herod of Judea to Herodias, the wife of his own brother, he was jailed. Herod vacillated about executing him, but the queen was adamant, and used the occasion of the king's birthday to further her plans. She had her daughter Salome dance at the king's birthday party, and ask as a favor for the head of the beautiful youth, John the Baptist. In the 19th century, the famous tale of the head of John the Baptist came to be interpreted differently, with Salome herself seeking his head, and thus Salome was transformed into the archetypal fin-de-siècle femme fatale who leads men to their downfall. Moreau was a painter who accorded Salome herself with the evil female power to destroy the saint, and Moreau's images of Salome exerted major influence on the arts and literature of the fin-de-siècle period, including the works of Oscar Wilde. Around 1870 Moreau contemplated creating a series of works relating to the life of John the Baptist, which resulted in two scenes, Salome dancing and the saint's severed head. This painting, Salome at the Prison, is a variant of the severed head scenes. Salome stands in front of the pillar that vertically divides this composition. Her head is bowed, her gaze focused on the tray at her feet, soon to bear the head of John the Baptist. A stairwell and prison equipment can be seen next to the pillar, bathed in a Rembrandtesque light, while to left rear can be seen the instant of John's beheading. Overall the composition is reminiscent of St Margaret, a painting created in 1873 for the daughter of Moreau's painter friend, Eugène Fromentin. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no. 93)