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    Museum collections / Art Institute of Chicago
    Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist
    Guido Reni. Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist, c. 1639–42. The Art Institute of Chicago. Public domain (CC0).
    AT-00000623

    Public data from the Art Institute of Chicago. Learn more

    Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist

    by Guido Reni

    Provenance

    Cardinal Girolamo Colonna (died 1666), Palazzo Colonna, Rome, by 1647 [Colonna collection inventory, 1647, no. 169; see Safarik 1996 for this and the following]; by descent in the Colonna family, until at least 1783 [Colonna collection inventory, 1783, no. 174]. Earl of Darnley, Cobham Hall, Kent, England, by 1812 [Graves 1912, no. 62]; by descent to Iva Francis Walter Bligh, 8th Earl of Darnley (died 1927); sold, Sotheby's, London, July 22-23, 1957, lot 318, to "Nash" for £100. George Wildenstein, London and New York, by March 1958 [record of phone conversation between Ay Wang Hsia, Wildenstein and Company, and Art Institute, April 4 and April 18, 1990, in curatorial object file.]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1960.

    Exhibition history

    London, British Institution, 1819, no. 62, as Judith with Head of Holofernes. Detroit Institute of Arts, Art in Italy, 1600-1700, Apr. 6-May 9, 1965, no. 82. Bologna, Pinoteca Nazionale, Guido Reni, 1575-1642, Sep. 5-Nov. 13, 1988, cat. 71; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Dec. 11, 1988-Feb. 5, 1989, cat. 59; Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, Mar. 9-May 14, 1989 [Bologna only]. Frankfurt, Städel Museum, Guido Reni: The Divine, Nov. 23, 2022 - Mar. 5, 2023, cat. 158; Madrid, Museo del Prado, Guido Reni, Mar. 28 - July 9, 2023, cat. 82.

    Publications

    Luca Assarino, Sensi d'umiltà e di stupore havuti da Luca Assarino, intorno le grandezze dell'eminentissimo cardinal Sacchetti, e le pitture di Guido Reni (Bologna, 1639), 29-30. Carlo Cesare Malvasia, Felsina pittrice: vite de' pittori bolognesi, vol. 2 (Bologna: Per l'erede di Domenico Barbieri, 1678; repr., Bologna: Tipografia Guidi all'Ancora, 1841), 64. Filippo Titi, Descrizione delle pitture, sculture e architetture esposte al pubblico in Roma (Rome: Marco Pagliarini, 1763; repr., Rome: Multigrafica Editrice, 1978), 482. Abbe [Jerome] Richard, Description historique et critique de l'italie, ou, Nouveaux mémoires sur l'état actuel de son gouvernement, des sciences, des arts, du commerce, de la population et de l'histoire naturelle, vol. 6 (Dijon: 1766; repr., Paris: Delalain, 1770), 54-56. Joseph Jérôme le Français de Lalande, Voyage d'un françois en italie, fait dans les années 1765 et 1766, vol. 3 (Venice and Paris: Desaint, 1769; repr., Yverdon: [F.-B. de Felice,] 1769-90), 458. Marcello Oretti, Le pitture che si ammirano nelli palaggi, e case de'nobili della Città di Bologna e di altri edifici in da Città, vol. 1 (Bologna: Biblioteca Comunale, 1769), 65 MS 8.104. Adamo Chiusole, letterario delle pitture, sculture, e architetture più rare di molte città d'Italia (Vicenza: nella Stamperia Turra, 1782), 263. Catalogo dei Qudri, e Pitture esistenti nel Palazzo dell’ Eccellentissima Casa Colonna in Roma (Rome: Presso Arcangelo Casaletti, 1783), 29 no. 174. Friedrich Wilhelm Basilius von Ramdohr, Ueber Mahlerei und Bildhauerarbeit in Romfiir Liebhaber des Schonen in der Kunst, vol. 2 (Leipzig: Bei Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1787), 79-80. Mariano Vasi, Itinéraire instructif de Rome: ou, Description genera le des monumens antiques et modernes et des ouvrages les plus remarquables de peinture, de sculpture et d'architecture de cette ce/ebre ville et de ses environs, vol. 1 (Rome: Pagliarini, 1792), 325. G[eorg] K[aspar] Nagler, Neues allgemeines Kunstler-Lexicon, vol. 13 (Munich: Verlag von E. A. Fleischmann, 1843), 16. [Gustav] Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, illuminated M[anu]s[cript]s, etc., vol. 3 (London: John Murray, 1854), 21, no. 2. Louis Thies, Catalogue of the Collection of Engravings Bequeathed to Harvard College by Francis Calley Gray (Cambridge: Welch, Bigelow, and Company, 1869), 136. M[oses] F[oster] Sweetser, Artist Biographies: Guido Reni (Boston: Riverside Press, 1878), 158. Algernon Graves, Summary of and Index to Waagen (London: A. Graves, 1912), 84. Algernon Graves, A Century of Loan Exhibitions, 1813-1912, vol. 1 (1913; repr., New York: Hurt Franklin, 1968), 458, no. 62. Gian Carlo Cavalli, Mostra di Guido Reni (Bologna: Edizioni Alfa, 1954), 102, 111. G[eorg] K[aspar] Nagler, Neues allgemeines Kiinstler-Lexikon, 3rd ed., vol. 14 (Leipzig: Schwarzenberg and Schumann, 1924), 294. Cesare Gnudi and Gian Carlo Cavalli, Guido Reni (Florence: Vallecchi, 1955), 88-89 under no. 84. City of Manchester Art Gallery, Art Treasures Centenary: European Old Masters, exh. cat. (Manchester: Art Gallery, 1957), 41, under no. 144. Federico Zeri, "La 'Salome' di Guido Gia in Casa Colonna," Paragone 11, no. 121 (1960): 50-60, figs. 35-8. Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report 1959-1960 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1960), 10. Anthony M. Clark, "A Late, Great Guido Reni," Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 54, no. 2 (1960): 3-7 (ill.). G[eorges] W[ildenstein ], "La Chronique des Arts," Supplement a la Gazette des Beaux-Arts 57 (1961): 27 fig. 92. Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), 33, 394 (ill.). Ellis Waterhouse, Italian Baroque Painting (London: Phaidon Press, 1962), 96-98, fig. 85. Frederick Cummings, Art in Italy, 1600-1700, exh. cat. (Detroit : Detroit Institute of Arts; distributed by H.N. Abrams, New York, 1965), 87 cat. 82. Howard Hibbard and Miiton Lewine, "Seicento at Detrok" Burlington Magazine 107, no. 748 (1965): 370. Stephen Pepper, "Detroit. The flowering of the Baroque in and out of Rome: A triumph for the provinces," Arts Magazine 39 (1965): 43. Denis Mahon, "Stock-taking in Seicento Studies," Apollo 82 (1965): 381, 385-86, 391, pl. VII. Donald Posner, "The Baroque revolution in Italy," Art News 64 (1965): 33, 58 fig. 4. Alfonso E. Perez Sanchez, Pintura italiana de s. XVII en Espana (Madrid: Universidad de Madrid, 1965), 185. John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1970; repr., London: Thames and Hudson, 1977, 1983, 1987), 46-47, 285 (ill.). Edi Baccheschi, L 'opera completa di Guido Reni (Milan: Rizzo Ii Editore, 1971), 109 under no. 168, 110 no. 178 (ill.). Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1972), 173, 417, 571. Peter Tomory, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings before 1800 (Sarasota, FL.: John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 1976), 127 under no. 132. Art Institute of Chicago, 100 Masterpieces (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1978), 54-55, fig. 17. Carlo Cesare Malvasia, The Life of Guido Reni, trans. Catherine Enggass and Robert Enggass (University Park, PA., and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980), 148. Richard E. Spear, Domenichino (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982), 264-65 no. 7, under no. 95. Emilia Calbi and Daniela Scaglietti Kelescian, eds., Marcello Oretti e ii patrimonio artistico privato Bolognese (Bologna: Istituto per i beni artistici culturali naturali della Regione Emilia-Romagna, 1984), 164. D. Stephen Pepper, Guido Reni: A Complete Catalogue of His Works with an Introductiory Text (Oxford: Phaidon Press Limited, 1984), 286 no. 186; fig. 218, appendix I, B11. Anthony M. Clark, Pompeo Batoni: A Complete Catalogue of his Works with an Introductory Text (Oxford: Phaidon Press, 1985), 218, under no. 31. Jorg Martin Merz, "Rezensionen," Kunstchronik 40 (1987): 107. James N. Wood and Katharine C. Lee [Reid], Master Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago, (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1988), 34 (ill.). Alessandro Conti, "Pittura e immagine in Guido Reni: dalle opere 'non perfette' al tempo pittore" Prospettiva, no. 52 (January 1988): 27. Susan L. Caroselli, ed., Guido Reni, 1575-1642, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1988), 87, 92, 308 cat. 59. Veronika Birke, Guido Reni und der Reproduktionsstich (Vienna: Graphische Sammlung Albertina, 1988), 115, no. 92 (ill.). Sybille Ebert-Schifferer, Andrea Emiliani and Erich Schleier, Guido Reni und Europa : Ruhm und Nachruhm, exh. cat. (Frankfurt: Schirn Kunsthalle; Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1988), 109, 138, 433, 657. Marzia Faietti, Konrad Oberhuber, and Artur Rosenauer, "Nuove proposte su Guido Reni a seguito della rassegna Bolognese," Accademia clementina: atti e memorie 25 (1990): 73. Paul G. Koch, A Burning and a Shining light: A Profile of John the Baptist (La Crosse, Ind.: Legacy of Words, 1996), 154 (ill.). John Gedo, The Artist and the Emotional World (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 107-108, fig. 8.1. Eduard A. Safarik, The Colonna Collection of Paintings: Inventories 1611-1795 (Munich; New Providence: K.G. Saur, 1996), 61, 66 no. 169, 68, 70 no. 63, 104 no. 21, 125 no. 75, 629, 638 no. 174, 1058 no. 48, plate 48. Richard E. Spear, The ‘Divine’ Guido: Religion, Sex, Money and Art in the World of Guido Reni (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), 312 fig. 168, 314, 390n96. Polly Shulman, "Uncommon Denominator of Art and Medicine," New York Times, October 5, 1999, D7 (ill.) Gérard-Julien Salvy, Reni (Milan: Electa, 2001), 138 no. 194, 139 (detail ill.), 140 (detail ill.), 157. Barbara Di Meola, "La collezione del Cardinale Girolamo I Colonna," in Francesca Cappelletti, Decorazione e collezionismo a Roma nel Seicento: Vicende di artisti, committenti, mercanti (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2003), 116-18, fig. 4. Jonathan Unglaub, “Poussin’s Esther before Ahasuerus: Beauty, Majesty, Bondage,” The Art Bulletin 85, no. 1 (March 2003): 120-21, fig. 12. Edgar Peters Bowron, Pompeo Batoni: Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, vol. 1 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016), 37, under no. 33. Bastian Exlercy, ed., Guido Reni: The Divine, exh. cat. (Berlin and Frankfurt: Hatje Cantz, 2022), 298-99 cat. 158. David García Cueto, ed., Guido Reni, exh. cat. (Madrid: Musel del Prado, 2023), 259 under cat. 42, 369-71 cat. 52.

    Quick Overview

    Artist
    Guido Reni (Italian, 1575–1642)
    Date
    c. 1639–42
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    248.5 × 174 cm (97 3/4 × 68 1/2 in.); Framed: 285 × 210.2 × 8.9 cm (112 3/16 × 82 3/4 × 3 1/2 in.)
    Type
    Painting
    Classification
    oil on canvas
    Style
    Renaissance
    Place
    Italy
    Department
    Painting and Sculpture of Europe
    Credit line
    Louise B. and Frank H. Woods Purchase Fund
    Accession no.
    1960.3

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    Open-access museum data

    This record comes from the open-access collection data that the Art Institute of Chicago publishes for unrestricted use (Creative Commons Zero). Art Trackers shows a selection of the museum's published fields. The Art Institute of Chicago is not an Art Trackers client and has not reviewed or endorsed this page; the museum's own website is the authoritative record.

    • View this work at the Art Institute of Chicago
    • The Art Institute of Chicago: open-access terms

    Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.

    Open-access museum record · AT-00000623

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