Salomé

Hans von Aachen · 1605/10

Medium

Black chalk and brush and gray wash, heightened with touches of white gouache, over traces of charcoal, on cream laid paper

Original size

18.9 × 14.8 cm (7 1/2 × 5 7/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Mannerism

Hans von Aachen's *Salomé* is a work of restrained drama — the infamous biblical dancer rendered not in triumphant gloating but in a mood closer to quiet gravity. Von Aachen spent much of his career at the court of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, a gathering point for some of the finest Mannerist artists in Europe. Working across chalk, wash, and white gouache, he brings a sculptor's sense of weight to figures that might easily have become mere decoration. The interplay of shadow and highlight here gives Salomé a physical presence rarely achieved in drawings of this period, and the layered medium allows him to build tone with the subtlety of oil painting. Rudolf II was himself a passionate collector of images depicting powerful, morally ambiguous women — Judith, Lucretia, Salomé — and von Aachen returned to such subjects repeatedly throughout his career, refining his approach to their psychological complexity. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates the drawing's tonal richness into the warmth of oil on canvas, preserving every nuance of von Aachen's chiaroscuro while giving the work a presence and permanence suited to display on any wall.