Herodias with the Head of St. John the Baptist

Delaroche's Herodias with the Head of Saint John the Baptist from around 1843 depicts the aftermath of Salome's dance—Herod's daughter requesting John's head as her reward—with the concentration on intimate horror and female power that distinguished his treatments of historical and biblical subjects involving women and death. The subject combined biblical narrative with the Romantic fascination with fatal women—the beautiful female figures whose desires led to destruction—that pervaded French painting from Géricault through Delacroix. Delaroche's Herodias presents the mother examining the severed head of the man who had condemned her illicit marriage, giving the scene a quality of cold intellectual satisfaction that made it more disturbing than straightforward horror. The work demonstrates his psychological range beyond the sympathetic heroism of his English history subjects.

The juxtaposition of feminine beauty and gruesome violence is rendered with Delaroche's characteristic smoothness and precision. The polished technique creates an unsettling contrast between the elegant figure and the horrifying subject.