Sunday, March 17, 2024

Head of the Baptist

Francesco Marmitta
Head of John the Baptist
ca. 1490
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Marco Palmezzano
Head of St John the Baptist
1495
oil on panel
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Anonymous Netherlandish Artist
Head of John the Baptist
ca. 1500
alabaster
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Giovanni Francesco Maineri
Head of St John the Baptist
1502
oil on panel
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Hans Baldung
Head of St John the Baptist
1516
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Andrea Solario
Head of St John the Baptist
before 1524
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous Italian Artist
Head of John the Baptist
ca. 1550-1650
oil on canvas
Cleveland Museum of Art

Domenichino
Head of St John the Baptist
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid

Anonymous Artist
Head of St John the Baptist
ca. 1630-60
marble
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Theodor Caspar von Fürstenberg
Head of John the Baptist
ca. 1656
mezzotint and engraving
Yale Center for British Art

Señan y González (Granada)
Head of St John the Baptist
(17th-century sculpture in Granada Cathedral)
ca. 1895
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Charles Sprague Pearce
Study for Beheading of St John the Baptist
ca. 1881
drawing
Brooklyn Museum

attributed to Mattia Preti
St John the Baptist prepared for execution
ca. 1650-60
drawing
Minneapolis Institute of Art

attributed to Rembrandt
Beheading of St John the Baptist
1629-30
etching
Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Prince Rupert, Count Palatine
Executioner with the Head of John the Baptist
1658
mezzotint
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Sebastiano Ricci
Beheading of St John the Baptist
ca. 1704
drawing
(study for fresco)
Royal Collection, Windsor

from The Beheading

When I get close to that broken cypress-tree, will I see
the flash of the knife-blade? Thirty-five to forty paces.
Forty paces exactly, until the abrupt halting of the drum.
And then my husband's heavy head will fall
on the stones, blurred with the light. Above,
the body will remain on the makeshift platform
that will slowly soak up the blood. A branch,
moving across the face, will rub out the light from the eyes.
Jump red head,
black head bounce.
Go find the mud in the ditch. It was I
who ordered the beheading.

– Takis Sinopoulos, translated by Edmund Keeley and George Savidis (1964)