The Feast of Herod and the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist

1461-1462

Benozzo Gozzoli

Artist, Florentine, c. 1421 - 1497

A woman with blond hair dances in the center of a room with a group of people clustered around a banqueting table to our right with a small, enclosed space occupied by a kneeling man and executioner to our left in this horizontal painting. All the people have pale skin. The ceiling is made up of blue squares encased in a gold grid that recedes to the back, stone wall of the room. The woman’s dress is made of fabric that looks vivid royal blue or butter yellow, depending on how the light hits it. Facing our right in profile as she dances, she steps forward onto her left foot, raises her right foot behind her, and holds her right arm aloft. Four men wearing crimson-red, pine-green, yellow, or bright blue robes or tunics and stockings stand behind the long table set along the wall to our right. A bearded man at the center of the table wears a red hat and fur-lined red robe. He touches his right hand to his chest and holds a knife on the table in his other hand as he looks at the dancing woman. Glasses, dishes, and bowls are arrayed along the table, which is draped with a white tablecloth. A trio of blond, curly-haired, cleanshaven men and a woman with her arms crossed across her chest stand at the far, narrow end of the table, on the other side of the room. Within an alcove at the back of the room, the dancer appears again, kneeling before a seated woman wearing a ruby-red dress. The dancer holds or gestures toward a silver plate holding the severed head of a bearded man with brown hair that rests in the seated woman’s lap. The left third of the painting is taken up with an enclosure, a tiny room set like a tall, stone box within the larger room. Through an arched opening, a haloed man wearing an ivory-white, fur garment kneels facing us, his head bowed over his hands in prayer. He is the same man as the one beheaded and presented on the plate in the background. A man wearing yellow and blue armor raises a sword over his head, preparing to behead the kneeling man.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.
On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 4

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    tempera on poplar panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 23.8 x 34.5 cm (9 3/8 x 13 9/16 in.)
    framed: 40.3 x 50.6 x 4.4 cm (15 7/8 x 19 15/16 x 1 3/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.2.3

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Part of the predella of the altarpiece commissioned 23 October 1461 for the altar of the Compagnia della Purificazione della Vergine (also called of San Marco or of San Zanobi) [Confraternity of the Purification of the Virgin] in the confraternity's meeting place near the church of San Marco, Florence;[1] transferred 1 May 1506 to the newly built Oratory of the confraternity across the street flanking San Marco,[2] and in 1570, possibly divided from the altarpiece, to the confraternity's new seat in Via San Gallo.[3] by 1757 the altarpiece, possibly no longer complete with predella, was in the refectory of the Ospedale dei Pellegrini (or del Melani) in Via San Gallo, where it remained until 1785.[4] marchese Alfonso Tacoli Canacci [1724-1801], Florence, by 1796; by inheritance to his nephew, Petro Tacoli [1773-1847], Modena.[5] Count Vittorio Cini [1885-1977], Venice, in the 1940s.[6] (Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York); sold June 1949 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[7] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] This was a confraternity of young men between the ages of 13 and 21 years, already in existence in 1299 according to Giuseppe Richa, Notizie istoriche delle chiese fiorentine, 10 vols., Florence, 1757: 5:329-331. According to its statutes, it was founded in 1427 and since the mid-1430s met in a space belonging to the Convent of San Marco (see Diane Cole Ahl, "'In corpo di Compagnia.' Art and Devotion in the Compagnia della Purificazione e di San Zanobi of Florence," in Confraternities and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Italy, ed. Barbara Wisch and Diane Cole Ahl, Cambridge, 2000). Along with prayers and communal singing, the association also organized the performance of mystery plays (see Neride Newbigin, "The Word Made Flesh. The Rappresentazioni of Mysteries and Miracles in Fifteenth Century Florence," Christianity and Renaissance, ed. Timothy Verdon and John Henderson, Syracuse, 1990: 262-263). For the meeting place of the Company, see Ann Matchette, "The Compagnia della Purificazione e di San Zanobi in Florence. A Reconstruction of Its Residence at San Marco," in Confraternities..., ed. Wisch and Cole Ahl, Cambridge, 2000.
The contract between the Compagnia and the painter, published by Leopoldo Tanfani Centofanti (Notizie di artisti tratte dai documenti pisani, Pisa, 1897: 83-86) and Orrado Ricci ("Benozzo Gozzoli e la pala della Compagnia della Purificazione," RivA 2 [1904]: 9-12), relates that the company "si rauna nella città di Firenze disopra alla chiesa di sancto Marcho aspreso all'orto di detta chiesa" ("meets in the city of Florence above the church of San Marco near the garden of said church"). This does not mean that the confraternity "had its meeting place above the church," as has been suggested (Fern Rusk Shapley, "A Predella Panel by Benozzo Gozzoli," Gazette des Beaux-Arts 39 (February 1952): 78; in fact, as a reliable eighteenth-century source makes clear, the compagnia met in "a room on the ground floor in the second cloister of San Marco, beside the garden" (see Serafino Maria Loddi, Notizia de soggetti e cose più memorabili del Convento di S. Marco di Firenze, Ms dated 1736, in the Archives of the Dominican Order at Santa Sabina in Rome; Serena Padovani consulted for Dr. Miklós Boskovits the copy in the archives of San Marco in Florence, fol. 32).
[2] See Richa 1757: 5:332. An inventory dated 1518 in the Archivio di Stato, Florence ("Corporazioni religiose soppresse. Compagnia di Santa Maria della Purificazione e di San Zanobi", P.XXX, no. 8, fol. 260v) describes "Vna tauola bella jnsuldetto altare dipintouj vna Vergine choruno banbino jnchollo Et sej santj Ealtre djpinture choruna bella chornicie..." ("a beautiful panel on the above-mentioned altar, painted on it a Virgin holding the Child and six saints and other paintings with a fine frame"), published in Herbert P. Horne, "Part of a Predella Painting by Benozzo Gozzoli," The Burlington Magazine 7 (1905): 383.
On the date on which the painting was moved from the compagnia to the "luogo dove sta il Casino de'Medici" ("place where the Casino de'Medici is located"), see Loddi 1736, fols. 32-33. Giorgio Vasari, who mentions the altarpiece, must also have seen it there (Opere, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, 9 vols., Florence, 1878-1885: 3:46), although he does not indicate the location or mention the predella.
[3] In 1570 "per dar luogo alla fabbrica del sopra mentovato Casino, ella fu trasferita in via San Gallo, ove di presente si trova" ("to make room for the construction of the above-mentioned Casino, it [that is, the confraternity] was transferred to via San Gallo, where it is presently located"); see Loddi 1736, fol. 33.
[4] An Ospizio dei Pellegrini was founded in 1685 by Domenico di Santi Melani (and thus also called Ospedale del Melani) next to the Oratorio della Compagnia della Purificazione and placed under the charge of this latter; see Richa 1757: 5:335. Richa mentions the altarpiece, but not the predella, which may already have been separated from the main panel by that date. The Ospedale and compagnia were suppressed in 1784 and its property sold, after having been inventoried in August 1785 (see Annalisa Innocenti, "Dispersione degli oggetti d'arte durante la soppressionoe leopoldina," RivA 44 (1992): 351-385). It seems practically certain that the "cinque quadretti traversi larghi soldi 12 di braccia alti 8 soldi" described in the inventory of 1785 are the five panels of the already dismembered predella (the measure of one soldo di braccia is equivalent to about 3 cm). Another of the stories on the predella, The Fall of Simon Magus from the life of Saint Peter, now in the British Royal Collection, was acquired in Italy sometime between 1791 and 1798.
[5] The printed Catalogue raisonné, ou description exacte de plusieurs excellens tableaux...dans un recueil appurtenant à monsieur le marquis Alphonse Tacoli Canacci à Florence, Parma, 1796, includes, apart from NGA 1952.2.3, the Presentation now in Philadelphia, whereas the manuscript version of 1789 now in the Real Biblioteca, Madrid (MSII/574, no. 86) omits them and lists instead (as nos. 87, 88 and 100) the predella panels today in Berlin and Milan and the main altarpiece itself, which probably were already sold by 1796. On the marchand-amateur Tacoli Canacci, see Alessandra Talignani "La Collezione dei dipinti toscani del Marchese Alfonso Tacoli Canacci," in Parma nell'Arte [1986]: 31-42. After Tacoli Canacci's death in 1801, his collection was inherited by nephew, Pietro Tacoli, and dispersed.
[6] Vittorio Cini in 1942 bought several fifteenth century Florentine paintings in Modena (see Federico Zeri's introduction to Dipinti ferraresi dalla Collezione Vittorio Cini, Vicenza, 1990: xi-xiii). It is probable that this panel comes from the same source.
[7] The Wildenstein invoice to the Kress Foundation for 16 items, including the Gozzoli painting, is dated 23 June 1949 (copy in NGA curatorial files, see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2171).

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2002

  • Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497): allievo a Roma, maestro in Umbria, Museo Civico di San Francesco, Montefalco, 2002, no. 34, repro.

Bibliography

1796

  • Catalogue raisonné, ou description exacte de plusieurs excellens tableaux…dans un recueil appurtenant à monsieur le marquis Alphonse Tacoli Canacci à Florence. Parma, 1796: 28, no. 164.

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 34-35, repro., as Dance of Salome and Beheading of John the Baptist.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 50, no. 13, repro., as Dance of Salome and Beheading of St. John the Baptist.

  • Comstock, Helen. “Additions to the Kress Collection.” Connoisseur 127 (September 1951): 66.

1952

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. "A Predella Panel by Benozzo Gozzoli." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 39 (February 1952):77-88, repro.

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. "Interpreting Masterpieces: Twenty-four Paintings from the Kress Collection." Art News Annual 16 (1952): 90, repro. 87

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. “Interpreting Masterpieces: Twenty-Four Paintings from the Kress Collection.” Art News 21 (1952): 90.

1954

  • Ferguson, George. Signs and Symbols in Christian Art. New York, 1954: pl. VI, fig. 20.

1956

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 16, color repro., as Dance of Salome and Beheading of Saint John the Baptist.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. London, 1957: 15, pl. 16.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 64, repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Early Italian Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number Three in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): pl. 16.

1961

  • Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 29, color repro. pl. 26.

  • Davies, Martin. National Gallery Catalogues. The Earlier Italian Schools. London, 1961: 74, 75 note 12.

1962

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 14, color repro.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 299, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Florentine School. 2 vols. London, 1963: 1:97.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 61.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:42, color repro.

  • Sweeny, Barbara. John G. Johnson Collection. Catalogue of Italian Paintings. Philadelphia, 1966: 36.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 53, repro.

1972

  • Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri. Census of Pre-Nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections. Cambridge, MA, 1972: 25, 647.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 162, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:229-230; 2:pl. 156.

  • Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 27, pl. 11.

1980

  • Hausamann, Torsten. “Die tanzende Salome in der Kunst von der christlichen Frühzeit bis dem 1500. Ikonographische Studien.” Ph.D. diss., Zurich University, 1980: 431.

1983

  • Early Italian Paintings and Works of Art 1300-1480 in Aid of the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum. Exh. cat. Matthiesen Fine Art, London, 1983: 50.

  • Shearman, John. The Early Italian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen. Cambridge, 1983: 133-134.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 90, no. 52, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 186, repro.

  • Steiner, Wendy. "Intertextuality in Painting." American Journal of Semiotics 3, no. 4 (1985): 63-64, fig. 5, 67.

  • Padoa Rizzo, Anna, and M. Casini Wanrooji. “Appunti sulla pittura fiorentina del Quattrocento: Benozzo Gozzoli, Domenico di Michelino.” Antichità Viva 5-6 (1985): 5.

1990

  • Bartalini, Roberto. “Benozzo Gozzoli.” In Luciano Bellosi, ed. Pittura di luce: Giovanni di Francesco e l’arte fiorentina di metà Quattrocento. Exh. cat. Casa Buonarroti, Florence, 1990: 118.

  • Merkel, Kerstin. Salome. Ikonographie im Wandel. Frankfurt, 1990: 60, 323.

1992

  • Padoa Rizzo, Anna. Benozzo Gozzoli. Catalogo completo. Florence, 1992: 72, 74, cat. 34.

  • Zeri, Federico, ed. Pinacoteca di Brera. Scuole dell’Italia centrale e meridionale. Milan, 1992: 29.

1993

  • Lloyd, Christopher. Italian Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago. Princeton, 1993: 127 n. 10.

1994

  • Acidini, Cristina. Benozzo Gozzoli. Florence and New York, 1994: 35, 39, fig. 53.

1995

  • Andrews, Lew. Story and Space in Renaissance Art: The Rebirth of Continuous Narrative. Cambridge, 1995: 82-86, 155-156 n. 14, repro.

1996

  • Ahl, Diane Cole. Benozzo Gozzoli. New Haven, 1996: 116, 117, 224-226, 235, 264, 271, 302 n. 42, pl. 140.

1997

  • Bernacchioni, Annamaria. “Opere di Benozzo per Firenze, conservati fuori sede.” In Anna Padoa Rizzo, ed. Benozzo Gozzoli in Toscana. Florence, 1997: 48-52.

1998

  • Faxon, Alicia Craig. "Dance/Dancers/Dancing." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. 2 vols. Edited by Helene E. Roberts. Chicago and London, 1998: 1:208, 209.

  • Faxon, Alicia Craig. "Fatal Woman/Femme Fatale." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 1:320.

  • Penny, Nicholas. “Pittori e botteghe nell’Italia del Rinascimento.” In Roberto Cassanelli, ed. La bottega dell’artista: tra Medioevo e Rinascimento. Milan, 1998: 41.

2000

  • Matchette, Anne. “The Compagnia della Purificazione e di San Zanobi in Florence: A Reconstruction of its Residence at San Marco." In Barbara Wisch and Diane Cole Ahl, eds. Confraternities and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge, 2000: 79-80.

  • Ahl, Diane Cole. “‘In corpo di Chompagnia’: Art and Devotion in the Compagnia della Purificazione e di San Zanobi of Florence.” In Barbara Wisch and Diane Cole Ahl, eds. Confraternities and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge, 2000: 46-73.

2001

  • Nessi, Silvestro. Benozzo Gozzoli. La vita - Le opere. Perugia, 2001: 70.

2002

  • Capitelli, Giovanna, and Graziano Alfredo Vergani. Benozzo Gozzoli: A growing workshop. Milan, 2002: 53, 54, fig. 60.

2003

  • Gregori, Mina, ed. In the Light of Apollo: Italian Renaissance and Greece. 2 vols. Exh. cat. National Gallery and Alexandros Souzos Museum, Athens, 2003-2004: 1:116, fig. 15, as The Dance of Salome, 214.

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 346-351, color repro.

  • Padoa Rizzo, Anna. _Benozzo Gozzoli. Un pittore insigne, “pratico di grandissima invenzione”. _Milan, 2003: 129, fig. 29.

  • Mencarelli, Rosaria. “Sulle tracce di Benozzo a Brera: la predella della Purificazione.” In Matteo Ceriana, Valentina Maderna, and Cristina Quattrini, eds. Brera mai vista. Il colore di Benozzo Gozzoli: Due predelle della Pinacoteca di Brera. Exh. cat. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, 2003: 11, 14, fig. 4.

2004

  • Strehlke, Carl Brandon. Italian Paintings, 1250-1450, in the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 2004: 194, 196, 200-201, figs. 36.7, 36.10.

2005

  • Buonocore, Vincenzo M. Il marchese Alfonso Tacoli-Canacci: “onesto gentiluomo smaniante per la Pittura”. Reggio Emilia, 2005: 104, 243-244, fig. 81.

2006

  • Fahy, Everett. "Early Italian paintings in Washington and Philadelphia." The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1241 (August 2006): 540.

2011

  • Nocentini, Serena, and Anna Padoa Rizzo, eds. Benozzo Gozzoli e Cosimo Rosselli nelle terre di Castelfiorentino: Pittura devozionale in Valdelsa. Exh. cat. Museo Benozzo Gozzoli, Castelfiorentino, 2011: 132.

2016

  • Bacchi, Andrea, and Andrea De Marchi, eds. La Galleria di Palazzo Cini. Dipinti, sculture, oggetti d'arte. Venice, 2016: 147.

  • Bacchi, Andrea, and Andrea De Marchi. “Vittorio Cini collezionista di pittura antica. Una splendida avventura, dal Castello di Monselico alla dimora veneziana, da Nino Barbantini a Federico Zeri.” In Andrea Bacchi and Andrea De Marchi, eds. La Galleria di Palazzo Cini. Dipinti, sculture, oggetti d'arte. Venice, 2016: 389, fig. 3.

2018

  • Schumacher, Andreas, ed. Florence and its Painters: From Giotto to Leonardo da Vinci. Exh. cat. Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 2018: 220.

2021

  • Barkan, Leonard. The Hungry Eye: Eating, Drinking, and European Culture from Rome to the Renaissance. Princeton, 2021: 109-110, fig. 3.15.

  • Llewellyn, Laura. "La pala d'altare di Benozzo Gozzoli per la Compagnia della Purificazione e di San Zanobi." In Serena Nocentini and Valentina Zucchi, eds. Benozzo Gozzoli e la Cappella dei Magi. Exh. cat. Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence, 2021: 73, 82, fig. 4.

Wikidata ID

Q20173823

You may be interested in

Loading Results