The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist
Giovanni di Paolo (Italian, 1398–1482)
1455–60
- Medium
- Tempera on panel
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 68.6 × 39.1 cm (27 × 15 3/8 in.); Framed: 82 × 53.4 × 7 cm (32 1/4 × 21 × 2 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Adult profiles and older: its museum's description or title mentions violence, death or gore. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Blood spills from Saint John the Baptist’s freshly severed neck as a henchman places his head on a golden platter. Sienese painter Giovanni di Paolo illustrated the life of John the Baptist in a twelve-part series; this panel depicts the moments just after John’s beheading, ordered by King Herod at the request of his daughter, Salome. The gruesome details contrast with the other figures’ placid expressions and the executioner’s casual pose as he returns his sword to its scabbard. The building itself, with its strict geometry, is likewise at odds with the rivulets of blood that pour over the patterned street.
Other panels in the series include scenes of John’s birth, his departure for a hermit’s life in the wilderness, his prophecy of Christ’s coming, performing Jesus’s baptism, and his imprisonment. The complex, detailed settings exploit the narrow proportions of the panels and set off the figures’ expressive poses. Throughout the series, the artist repeated background elements, colors, and patterns to create a unified, easily legible narrative. Assembled in three rows, the original ensemble probably served as doors for a shrine containing a sacred relic (probably a body part)…
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
