Feast of Herod
Artist
Studio of Peter Paul Rubens
(Flemish, 1577–1640)
Datec. 1635
MediumOil on panel
Dimensions28 1/4 x 41 3/4 inches (71.8 x 106 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineGift in honor of Marilyn M. Segal by her children
Object number1998.22.9
Collections
- EUROPEAN
- PROVENANCE RESEARCH
Label TextThis painting presents part of a story in the New Testament in the Bible about the death of Saint John the Baptist (Mark 6:21-29). At King Herod’s birthday banquet, Salome, the daughter of his wife Herodias, danced for the king. Salome was so pleasing to the king that he swore to grant her whatever she wished. Her mother told her to ask for the head of John the Baptist, who had publically denounced her marriage to Herod as unlawful, since she previously had been married to the king’s brother. In the scene depicted here, King Herod is seated at the far right, and Salome stands before him in a red dress, uncovering a platter that holds John the Baptist’s head.
Slightly left of the painting’s center stands a Black man, holding a bowl of fruit high above his shoulder. The man’s actions, dress, and strong forearms indicate his role as an enslaved person or servant to King Herod. Images of Black people in Netherlandish art of this period gradually increased as their actual presence within the territory grew. Though slavery in much of the Netherlands was illegal, Africans were still owned by white masters. Depictions of Black people in religious paintings of this period often presented the figures as types, symbolic of the colonizing spread of Christianity into Africa and throughout Asia and the Americas.
Slightly left of the painting’s center stands a Black man, holding a bowl of fruit high above his shoulder. The man’s actions, dress, and strong forearms indicate his role as an enslaved person or servant to King Herod. Images of Black people in Netherlandish art of this period gradually increased as their actual presence within the territory grew. Though slavery in much of the Netherlands was illegal, Africans were still owned by white masters. Depictions of Black people in religious paintings of this period often presented the figures as types, symbolic of the colonizing spread of Christianity into Africa and throughout Asia and the Americas.
ProvenancePossibly Joachim van Sandrart [1606-1688]; possibly by inheritance through his family until 1885. Herman Linde [d. 1909] by 1886. Sir William van Horne [1843-1915], Montreal, by 1910. Purchased April 5, 1990 through (Sotheby's New York, lot 251) by Richard D. Segal; gift 1998 to Duke University Museum of Art, now Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.