CORNELIS ENGEBRECHTSZ
CIRCA 1465-1527go Salome with the Head of John
the Baptist
Brush and dark gray ink, gray wash, and white gouache
heightening on gray prepared paper, corners cut; H: 19.9
cm (7I3/ióin.); W: 15.5 cm (oVfein.)
87.00.119
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS! None.
PROVENANCE: Art market, London; Gôsta Stenman,
Stockholm; Einar Perman, Stockholm (sale, Christie's,
London, December 12, 1985, lot 329); art market,
London.
EXHIBITIONS: Dutch and Flemish Drawings in the Nation-
almuseum and Other Swedish Collections, Nationalmu-
seum, Stockholm, 1953, no. 6 (catalogue by N. Lind-
hagen and P. Bjurstrôm); Middeleeuwse Kunst der
Noordelijke Nederlanden, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,
June-September 1958, no. 198 (drawings entries by I. Q.
van Regieren Aliena and L. C. J. Frerichs).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: W. S. Gibson, The Paintings of Cornells
Engebrechtsz (New York, 1977), pp. 7, 33, 41; 244, no.
25; J. O. Hand et al., The Age of Bruegel: Netherlandish
Drawings in the Sixteenth Century, exh. cat. (National
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and Pierpont Mor-
gan Library, New York, 1986), p. 135, under no. 46.
GIBSON (1977, PP. 33, 41) FIRST ATTRIBUTED THIS
drawing to Engebrechtsz., noting its similarity to one of
his earliest known paintings, Christ Carrying the Cross
(Leiden, Stedelijk Museum "De Lakenhal"), which was
probably executed during the 14905. Especially close are
the figures of Salome and the Magdalen, which ap-
proximate one another in general pose as well as the
prominent painterly highlights on their gowns. Besides
its surface richness, which calls to mind similar aspects
of Engebrechtsz.'s painting technique, the drawing is
also typical in its subtle rendering of the emotions of the
protagonists. There is only one other drawing generally
thought to be autograph, Study Sheet with Four Heads (Bu-
dapest, Szépmüvészeti Muzeum inv. 1413). Although it
is on a page from a sketchbook rather than a finished
composition, the Budapest drawing, like the Getty
sheet, is largely drawn with the brush and shares the
generous application of luminous white heightening.
In contrast to the numerous fifteenth- and sixteenth-
century representations of the martyrdom of the Baptist,
which show the decapitation or feasting scenes with the
dance of Salome, the present drawing shows the less
common episode of Salome presenting his head to
Herod and Herodias. Salome's costume and the general
disposition of the figures hark back to earlier Nether-
landish portrayals of this scene such as a woodcut illus-
tration in Ludolfphus de Saxonia's Leven ons Heerenjhesu
Christ (I488).^1 Engebrechtsz. s pupil Lucas van Leyden
later depicted the episode in two woodcuts (B. 12(441],
I3[44i]v. 12,7).i. E. S. Jacobowitz and S. L. Stepanek, The Prints of Lucas van
Leyden and His Contemporaries, exh. cat. (National Gallery of
Art, Washington, D.C., 1983), p. 115, under no. 36, fig. 36a.220 DUTCH SCHOOL • ENGEBRECHTSZ.