Cesare Da Sesto, Salome with the head of John the Baptist

Oil on canvas
121x94 cm. Framed
This dazzling painting faithfully replicates, except for a reduction that concerns the lower part of the composition, Salome with the Head of the Baptist, a masterpiece by Cesare da Sesto that first belonged to Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo and then to Emperor Rudolph II, and is now finally conserved at the National Gallery in London. Of the admirable prototype, this remarkable version recovers the dazzling, brightly contrasted colours and the studied elegance of the postures of the two protagonists. The extreme sophistication that constitutes the most salient feature of the original, the result of a particularly elaborate preparatory phase, is also pursued in our canvas, which traces the original invention, offering a faithful interpretation of it but declined in an even more markedly mannerist key.

This dazzling painting faithfully replicates, except for a reduction that concerns the lower part of the composition, Salome with the Head of the Baptist, a masterpiece by Cesare da Sesto that first belonged to Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo and then to Emperor Rudolph II, and is now finally conserved at the National Gallery in London. Of the admirable prototype, this remarkable version recovers the dazzling, brightly contrasted colours and the studied elegance of the postures of the two protagonists. The extreme sophistication that constitutes the most salient feature of the original, the result of a particularly elaborate preparatory phase, is also pursued in our canvas, which traces the original invention, offering a faithful interpretation of it but declined in an even more markedly mannerist key.