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The Feast of Herod (recto); Tomyris with the Head of Cyrus (verso)
About the Artwork
Peter Paul Rubens had a large studio in Antwerp and used drawing to prepare for large paintings as well as to direct the many pupils who assisted him. Striking in its immediacy, the drawing on the recto of this sheet of paper is a preparatory study for the Feast of Herod painting now at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. Herod, wearing a large cap and wrapped in a mantle, shrinks back in horror as Salome uncovers a charger that holds the head of Saint John the Baptist. Smiling, Herodias grabs the platter with her left hand and, in a chilling detail, gestures toward the charger with a fork. Rubens wrote what is usually interpreted as “Herodias somewhat higher” at the top of the sheet. The verso of the sheet depicts a sketch for another story featuring a change of fortune at the hands of a vengeful woman, Tomyris with the Head of Cyrus. Rubens made two paintings of the subject (now in Paris and Boston). A rare theme, the story tells of Queen Tomyris who, avenging the death of her son in battle, collects the head of his murderer Cyrus in a bag of human blood. Tomyris is shown seated under a canopy holding a scepter, while the servants before her handle Cyrus’s head. Rubens wrote “plus spatij” (more space) in the center of the sheet.
Inscriptions
by artist, upper center, in brown ink: de Herodias [wat hooger? (or: "meden hoofte," "wat hoegte," or "wat hogher")]; by artist, lower right, in brown ink: den[or: deze] stoel te [cort?].
Provenance
ca. 1800-1900: Unidentified collector, probably Austria (Lugt 622) ca. 1900-1953: Private collection, England 1953: with Herbert N. Bier, London 1954-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Drawings & Oil Sketches by P.P. Rubens from American Collections.. Fogg Art Museum/Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (organizer) (January 14-February 29, 1956); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (March 20-April 28, 1956); Rubenshuis, Antwerpen, Belgium (September 2-16, 1956). Tekeningen van P.P. Rubens. Rubenshuis, Antwerpen, Belgium (June 16-September 25, 1956). Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 3, 1958-October 11, 1959). Drawings from the Museum Collection: 15th-17th Centuries. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 18-October 11, 1960). Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 11-September 10, 1963). Old Master Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 10-31, 1964). Drawings: France, Italy, Netherlands. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 1-March 24, 1965). Prints and Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 6-September 9, 1965). Old Master Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 29, 1966-February 28, 1967). Prints and Drawings from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 29-June 6, 1967). Drawings from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 9, 1967-January 1, 1968). Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 11-October 21, 1968). Idea to Image: Preparatory Studies from the Renaissance to Impressionism. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 19-March 23, 1980). Seventeenth Century Netherlandish Graphics. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 27-August 1, 1982). Northern European Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 16, 1982-January 9, 1983). National Schools of Style. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 14-September 18, 1983). Baroque Imagery. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 6, 1984-January 6, 1985). Flemish Drawings in the Age of Rubens: Selected Works from American Collections. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 4-February 20, 1994). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640): The Drawings. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (January 18-April 3, 2005). Treasures on Paper from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 9-June 8, 2014).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577–1640)
- Date
- c. 1637–38
- Medium
- pen and brown ink, with black and red chalk, touched with white gouache
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 27.2 x 47.2 cm (10 11/16 x 18 9/16 in.); Secondary Support: 27.6 x 47.3 cm (10 7/8 x 18 5/8 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Delia E. Holden and L. E. Holden Funds
- Accession no.
- 1954.2
More by Peter Paul Rubens in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00000310
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