“Feast of Herod”
“Feast of Herod” is a gilded bronze relief by the Italian Renaissance master, Donatello. This detail is from the baptismal font in the Siena Cathedral in Siena, Italy, and dates to 1425 to 1429. This piece was commissioned by the city of Siena.
This is one of Donatello’s earliest relief sculptures that displays his advanced use of perspective. He was inspired by Filippo Brunelleschi’s experiments with linear perspective. Using architectural elements as well as contrasting areas of low and high relief, Donatello creates depth and highlights focal points in the work. Rather than focusing on one single vanishing point, he used a V as a vanishing point, to draw the viewer’s eye across the scene.
The scene depicts the Biblical story of the death of John the Baptist. In the story, Herodias, Salomé’s mother, is angry at John the Baptist for speaking out against her marriage to King Herod. John the Baptist’s issue was that Herodias was originally the wife of Herod’s deceased brother and thought it inappropriate for her to marry her dead husband’s brother.
In turn, Herodias asks her daughter, Salomé, to dance provocatively for her stepfather, King Herod, at his birthday feast. The king is so impressed with Salomé’s dancing, that after her performance, he offers her any wish she would like. After speaking with her mother, Salomé, asks for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. King Herod hesitantly obliges and has John executed. In the scene, the executioner serves John’s head to Herd on a platter. You can see the disgust on Herod’s face.
You can see the “Feast of Herod” at the baptismal font in the Siena Cathedral in Siena, Italy.
For more on Donatello, please visit his short biography here.
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