Salome Receiving Her Trophy

Salome by the Italian Baroque painter Gian Francesco Barbieri (1591-1666).

Kind of Salome

A modern interpretation of Salome by the American fantasy artist Gerald Brom (born 1965).

Cruel Red

Salome (1899) by the American painter Francis Luis Mora (1874-1940).

A Severe Business

Salome by the Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610). There's no triumph only the severe contemplation of death.

Ghoulish Queen

Salome with the Head of St John the Baptist (1910) by the Swiss Symbolist painter Adolf Frey-Moock (1881-1954). All is illuminated with a ghoulish green. And Salome is wearing also a snake bangle making the connection to Eve and all the other evil women.

Bloody Trophy

Salome with Head of St John Baptist (1506) by the  Italian Renaissance painter Andrea Solari (1460–1524).

Dance of the Seven Veils

Dance of the Seven Veils by the French painter Gaston Bussière (1862-1929). The painting is a simple copy of his Salomé (1914) he only added some veils and changed the back a little.

Art Nouveau Dancer

Salome (1906). Another version by the German Symbolist and Art Nouveau painter Franz von Stuck (1863-1928).

Herodiade - a Sketch

Herodiade (1880-90) by the French academic painter Jean Jacques Henner (1829-1905). Actually Herodiade was the mother of Salome, but in art the two persons normally blend into one.

Bloody Lolita

Another Salome by the French Symbolist painter Gustave-Adolphe Mossa (1883-1971). Mossa loved these cruel contrasts, she got also cut off hand and especially disgusting is the cat besides the head.

Oriental Salome

Salome by the French academic painter Léon François Comerre (1850-1916). Comerre specialized also in oriental subjects as can be seen here.

Bloody Reward

The Dancer's Reward (1907) by the English artist Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872–1898).
In this illustration to Oscar Wilde’s Salomé the wicked heroine seems as terrified as her victim.

The Trophy

Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist (c. 1506–7) by the Itallian painter Andrea Solari (?-1524).

This Renaissance painting reminds with the costumes of the Salomes by Lucas Cranach but it’s much more dynamic.

Oriental Princess

Salome (1882) by the French painter Jean Baptiste Hippolyte de Vergeses (1847-1896).

Vergeses depicts here the biblical Salome in an oriental look, like the popular oriental paintings of this time. She looks more like a kind of Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights than a biblical woman. Only the head on the plate leaves no doubt about who she really is.

Art Deco Salome

Salome by the Greek American artist John Vassos (1898–1985). Vassos was a famous Art Décor designer, painter and illustrator. In 1927 he made the illustrations for a new edition of Oscar Wilde’s Salome. The result are a some impressive dynamic and cool interpretations.

Comic Salome

Here’s Salome on an older cover of the comic Vampirella. Interesting is not only the survival of the old story in comics, but more the mixture of Salome and the myth of the Snake queen, the goddess of evil. Normally she is represented by Lilith or sometimes Eva, but today it seems that these old myths are blended into one.

Ghoulish Salome

Here a contemporary interpretation (2007) of the old myth of Salome and St. John the Baptist by the Polish artist Joanna Chrobak (born 1968). Salome looks like a pale ghoulish ghost contemplating sadly her trophy. A great painting in the best Polish surrealist tradition.

A Modern Application

This painting "The Servant" (1994) is by the American fantasy artist Gerald Brom (born 1965). And though it probably not pretends to be an interpretation of the old story of Salome and St. John the Baptist, it is unavoidable to see that myth in it. The iconography is in this case so strong, that a head on a plate will always be seen as that of St. John.

Art Nouveau Salome

Salome (1925) by the British artist Charles De Sousy Ricketts (1866-1931). Ricketts worked mostly as a book illustrator and was a celebrated stage designer. Here he shows Salome in the best Art Nouveau manner. The painting is much more a symbolic arrangement than a historical painting.

Freudian Nightmares

Salome by the French Symbolist painter Gustave-Adolphe Mossa (1883-1971) probably painted in the first decade of the 20th century.

Mossa uses the old biblical story to illustrate the fear of man slaughtering Lolitas. His blood licking child-woman is a modern Freudian interpretation of male nightmares.