Home Online catalogues Studi & Schizzi 12. Francesco Salviati Florence 1510 – 1563 Rome Study of a Draped Female Figure: Salome, before 1541 This painstakingly executed drawing is a preparatory sketch for the figure of Salome in the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, a fresco painted by Francesco Salviati in the Capella del Pallio in the Palazzo Farnese, Rome (1541). The general posture of the figure is based on that of a Psyche executed by the artist ten years earlier in The Triumph of Psyche (Private collection, Florence). As was his habit, Salviati returned to a design with which he was satisfied, adapting it for a new iconography. Compared with his Psyche, the artist has given Salome a more dynamic appearance, expressed in the slight tilting of the upper body, the movement of the drapery and the shifting of the feet. He also detailed the young female model’s impassive expression in an enlarged study at the bottom of the page.
This painstakingly executed drawing is a preparatory sketch for the figure of Salome in the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, a fresco painted by Francesco Salviati in the Capella del Pallio in the Palazzo Farnese, Rome (1541). The general posture of the figure is based on that of a Psyche executed by the artist ten years earlier in The Triumph of Psyche (Private collection, Florence). As was his habit, Salviati returned to a design with which he was satisfied, adapting it for a new iconography. Compared with his Psyche, the artist has given Salome a more dynamic appearance, expressed in the slight tilting of the upper body, the movement of the drapery and the shifting of the feet. He also detailed the young female model’s impassive expression in an enlarged study at the bottom of the page.