Salomé recibiendo la cabeza del Bautista

Salome Receiving the Head of the Baptist from 1501 by Bernardino Luini depicts the gruesome biblical scene with his characteristic restraint and beauty. The contrast between Salome's youthful beauty and the severed head she receives was a subject that fascinated Italian Renaissance painters Oil on canvas, increasingly preferred over panel in the sixteenth century, offered greater flexibility for large-scale compositions It is now held at The Prado in Madrid, repository of Spain's Habsburg royal

The disturbing subject is rendered with Luini's characteristic gentleness, the soft modeling and idealized features creating a strange tension between beauty and horror.