Enter Herodias
Date1906
Artist
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley
(British draftsman, illustrator and writer, 1872–1898)
Illustration CitationA Portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley's drawings illustrating "Salome," by Oscar Wilde (John Lane: London, c. 1906)
MediumOffset lithograph
Dimensionscomposition: 8 3/4 × 6 5/16 in. (22.2 × 16 cm)
sheet: 13 5/16 × 10 5/16 in. (33.8 × 26.2 cm)
sheet: 13 5/16 × 10 5/16 in. (33.8 × 26.2 cm)
Credit LineAcquisition Fund, 2010
Object number2010-31.9
On View
Not on viewClassificationsPRINT
Label TextThis powerfully unsettling illustration pertains to the moment just after the Young Syrian, besotted with Salomé, has taken his own life in despair over her infatuation with Iokanaan. Herodias is portrayed as a demon with overly large breasts and swelling hair accompanied by a ghoulish cast of characters—an embryonic figure on her right and a hermaphrodite on her left. At lower right, one of several portraits of Wilde is included in the guise of an impresario or conductor in the orchestra pit. Beardsley’s original conception did not include the shielding fig leaf.
